Amiga Tools 3/Amiga Tools 3.iso/grafik/raytracing/imagine/tips/arc12.txt

Text File | 1993-03-12 | 144KB | 3,585 lines

IMAGINE archive: collected off of [e-mail]

ARCHIVE XII
Sep. 15 '91 - Oct. 6 '91

If you have questions or problems with this file, email Marvin Landis
at [e-mail]

note: each message seperated by a '##'

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Subject: Looking for Good Imagine Modellers?
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 91 20:27:58 -0700
From: A message from ************************** Looking for Mokkori-Chan's --MH <[e-mail]>

Problem::My friend asked me to create a "spacecraft" that is inside
     a "spacecraft"..He gave me some rough sketchs of how he'd like it
     done, complete with front,side,top, and perspective views..but alas
     his scketches overwhelmed mi abilities as an Imagine modeller.

Question::Can anyone help me create this object for Imagine? I can send
          copies of the sketches, no charge (29 cent stamp, big deal...)

Reply:: Thanks very much./Doomo arigato goziamasu./Gracias.

A message from **************************"Looking for Mokkori-Chan's"--MH
M O K K O R I   H U N T E R            |)________________________________
aka  David Cotelessa      (((((((((((((||-------------------------------/
Address: [e-mail]   |)r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r

##

Subject: Re:  Imagine locking up
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 91 12:43:43 edt
From: David Tiberio <[e-mail]>

  I had lots of problems with Imagine locking up until i got my a3000. Since
then it has only locked up once. Try not to double click the mouse buttons
too fast.

David Tiberio

##

Subject: Klingon Battlecruiser Object...
Date: 16 Sep 91 15:53:00 EST
From: "SYSTEM MANAGER" <[e-mail]>

Coming soon to a hubcap near you!  A Klingon Battlecruiser!  My first
major object created with Imagine.

If it were not for this list and all of the thoughtful help that all
of you have given me, this would not be possible!

I should have it ready by the first of October.  :-)

-mark=
[e-mail]



##

Subject: MakeAnim sought for DAAM purposes
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 91 16:42:07 -0400
From: [e-mail] (BRANHAM,JOSEPH FRANKLIN)

I've not turned up anything in the standard repositories of PD software
concerning MAkeAnim (fish/ab20/hubcap).

Is this actually PD? Can anyone give me a pointer as to how to use DAAM
with some other anim-maker? (I've got one of the Mindware products, which
have ALL SORTS of odd anim tools hiding in various directories.)

Moo.
Frank Branham

##

Subject: Re: MakeAnim sought for DAAM purposes
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 91 17:00:41 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> Can anyone give me a pointer as to how to use DAAM with some
> other anim-maker? (I've got one of the Mindware products, which
> have ALL SORTS of odd anim tools hiding in various directories.)

I have mostly used Page Flipper F/X for animation compiling and to keep
DAAM from complaining about not having MakeAnim available, I created a
null file in the directory DAAM was in and named it MakeAnim. While this
still means I have to compile  the animation as a seperate step, at least
DAAM will do the image conversion.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Re: animation to tape ?
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 91 17:54:06 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> Is there a way to get 24bit animations using a Sony EVO-9700
> (a twin deck HI-8 editing box which we have here) and the
> Toaster. Would we need a single frame controller or can it
> be done with editing software.

Yes, you need a single frame controller. There is a software version of
a single frame controller made by Nucleus but it does not currently support
the EVO-9700, just selected units using Betacam SP, Umatic SP, D2, 1",
and S-VHS formats.

> some kind of software to lay down 10 frames or so of an
> image, then back up 9 frames, lay down another 10 frames and
> so on, all this via script control.

You can do this yourself if you have intimate knowledge of the software
and hardware interface required for your specific machine. It is no small
task.

> Or are we better off trying to use DCTV and running an
> animation package? I've tried compressing to Anim format and
> playing this back but find that the frame rate is too slow
> and will vary drastically depending on the amount of change
> in adjacent frames.

No matter what animation compressor you use, complex animation will always
run too slow for broadcast.

> I hear that PageFlipper F/X is
> supposed to be pretty good.  Will it really go at a good
> frame rate?  I've heard it doesn't do full 736 overscan, so
> will it still cover the entire screen when projected or are
> we going to get a small edge down the sides?

I use PageFlipper F/X with DCTV, but only for test animations. You probably
won't notice the black edge from the reduced overscan (at least not on your
TV) but it will be there.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: What I was thinking about doing with ADPro WRT animation & video
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 91 09:59:50 JST
From: [e-mail] (Manjit Bedi)

Hello again Mark and everyone,

Mark Thompson Write:
>What did you have in mind for ADPro? How does it fit into the picture?

I had just got a DCTV and want to have somwe fun with it.  I had asked
Mark last week in some E-mail directly to him if he seen a particular
music video that had an well executed combination of video and
computer graphics.  The music video was for a song called 'Pacific
202' by a band called 808 State; the band makes 'Deep House' music
which is a type of dance music heavy on synthesizers.  I am aspiring
to try to do things like I saw in the video.  There is a scene where
still shots of the band members where flashed across the screen.  The
images of the band members I suspect were just digitised images of
photos.  And if you recall over a week ago, I was wondering about the
best way to have animation going on in front of a video source or with
images orginating from video being used with a DCTV unit and Imagine
to create animation.  I cannot do the a moving video image but with
ADPro I would able be to take video images that have been digitised
and do some compositing with them and put the ultimate results back on
video.  Has anyone out done anything quite like this?  Steve Worley
had made the suggestion about doing compositing way back when.

I hope what I mean and intend is somewhat clear : )

Sidenote:

Has anyone heard of the videotape called 'Video WallPaper'.  The name
is quite unimpressive but the tape is far from it.  It is a video of
computer graphics set to synth music.  The images are very sort
surreal an psychedelic.  Not a lot of raytraced or rendered graphics
but a lot of neat geomtric gynnastics in computer graphics.  The tape
just came out in Japan recently.  I plan to buy a copy but is costs
9000 yen which is like $84 Canadian.  This stuff is kind of popular
here at the moment.

Manjit Bedi ( [e-mail])
                    no sig  -  no worries

##

Subject: What is PageFlipper F/X?
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 91 13:26:37 JST
From: [e-mail] (Manjit Bedi)

What is PageFlipper F/X?  The name seems to indicate the obvious so
perhaps should I say what is so special about this piece of software?
What can it do and how much is it?  Blah blah blah .....

Manjit Bedi ( [e-mail])
                    no sig  -  no worries

##

Subject: Sketches for spacecraft(Re:Looking for Imagine Modelers)
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 91 23:24:23 -0700
From: A message from ************************** Looking for Mokkori-Chan's --MH <[e-mail]>

Well, sorry folks, but due to a slight prob with mi mail, people
who replied to me about helping create a spacecraft in Imagine
got deleted. (One of those days...)

Anyways, I plan to put IFF pics of the sketches up on hubcap
real soon, so if you can, please re-reply to me if you want to help
out on creating the objects. (They aren't too hard, but I can't
figure how to create them yet...)

A message from **************************"Looking for Mokkori-Chan's"--MH
M O K K O R I   H U N T E R            |)________________________________
aka  David Cotelessa      (((((((((((((||-------------------------------/
Address: [e-mail]   |)r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r

##

Subject: Re: What is PageFlipper F/X?
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 91 09:55:49 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> What is PageFlipper F/X?  The name seems to indicate the obvious so
> perhaps should I say what is so special about this piece of software?
> What can it do and how much is it?  Blah blah blah .....

PageFlipper F/X is an animation compilation program produced by Mindware
International. It's roots are quite old but has been upgraded twice since
its original release (once to add special effects and then again to add
Anim5 output and many other enhancements). The special effects are basically
a variety of video switcher type functions such as dissolves, blinds, wipes,
ect. The intent of the program was to create a versatile animation
builder like The Director, but with an easier to use user interface. They
succeed at this to some extent, but using many of the more powerful features
are not as trivial to implement as they could be. I seldom use any of the
power features anymore (many of them probably wouldn't work with DCTV),
just simple animation compilation with selected looping and pauses here
and there. I like PageFlipper F/X because to create an animation, all I
have to do is specify the directory that my images are in, click on select all,
and it autimatically cretes the build script. I can then modify that script
to change play rates, compression method, looping, etc, etc, or just
compile it and view it. I would not necessarily say that PageFlipper F/X
is better than any other anim builder out there, it just happens to be the
only one I own (and I don't even have the most recent version).
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Re: What is PageFlipper F/X?
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 91 10:20:59 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> What is PageFlipper F/X?  how much is it?

A few things I forgot. I am unaware of the current price but I paid
around $80 approx 3 or 4 yyears ago. It should be still available from
any major Amiga software house. I would however check out some of the
competitors first before you buy. The latest version of Director for example
is quite nice.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: PageFlipper F/X meets Imagine anim
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 91 15:05:21 -0400
From: [e-mail] (BRANHAM,JOSEPH FRANKLIN)

The real advantage of PageFlipper F/X is that you get more speed and
flexibility in your animations. Being able to make several loops inside
your animations is an amazingly useful feature in itself.

Of course Imagine has an amazingly similar lot of flexibilty in its format,
but I don't know about speed comparisons---but looking at some of the results,
I bet that it is pretty close.

THE REAL POINT OF THIS MESSAGE BELOW

Mayhap there is some devious way to get Imagine (since we already have it)
to assemble converted DCTV frames. DAAM could create the frames, but I bet
if we copied the IFFtoDCTV frames over the original Imagine frames, Imagine
would choke when it tries to assemble an anim with 24-bit frames when it
finds 4-bit frames.

So mayhap you could do the rendering in one subproject and save the converted
pics in another subproject set to the right screen parameters. And you'd
have to hand-edit whatever configuration file Imagine uses to tell what
has been rendered. (I haven't looked at this for Imagine yet, but the file
was a text file in Turbo Silver.)

If anyone tries playing with these ideas, let us know.


Moo.
Frank Branham

##

Subject: Textures
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 91 19:14:43 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Mr. Julian L Brown)

Forgive me if this question has been asked before, but I don't have
access to FTP and haven't read the archives.

   I have tried to use the 'checks' texture, but am having strange
problems with it. This is what happened: I created a plane (I tried the
GROUND primitive, but there was no difference) and selected the 'checks'
texture. Upon rendering in scanline, the surface of the plane vaguely
represented the 'checks' that I was looking for. They were heavily
dithered, and were not sharp at all. All the settings were the default
except for the colors which I set to BLACK (0,0,0) for the checks color,
and WHITE (255,255,255) for the plane color.
   I have tried reorienting the checks' axis, and have produced some
change, but nothing better. What do you think I am doing wrong? All of
the other textures that I have tried work fine, but 'checks' are what I
want. I keep seeing the extremely sharp checkered ground in many of the
example traces and have much envy.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\                 Julian L Brown                ///////////////
//////////////       uunet!mtsu!csjlb | [e-mail]       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

##

Subject: Re:  Textures
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 91 13:32:42 -0600
From: HURTT CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL <[e-mail]>

    I haven't had any trouble with checks myself. You say they are heavily
dithered, do you have dithering in the attributes set fairly high? I don't
think I use it at all when I use checks.

    Chris

##

Subject: Checks problem
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 91 16:33:19 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Julian Brown asks:

>   I have tried to use the 'checks' texture, but am having strange
>problems with it. This is what happened: I created a plane (I tried the
>GROUND primitive, but there was no difference) and selected the 'checks'
>texture. Upon rendering in scanline, the surface of the plane vaguely
>represented the 'checks' that I was looking for. They were heavily
>dithered, and were not sharp at all.


The problem has to do with the placement of your texture axis.
Remember that checks is a THREE dimentional texture, and that the
checks will change color on objects with height as well. What has
happened is that your ground plane is EXACTLY at one of these
vertical check-changes, and Imagine can't decide whether to include
the plane in the top half or the bottom half of the check boundry.
This is called "digital bounce" by Impulse for some reason. The
solution is easy. Edit the texture axis and lift it up in the Z
direction, off of the surface of your plane. Then you should have no
problem.

-Steve

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: Objects & IFF24
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 91 16:07:26 est
From: [e-mail] (-s90066729-k.wong-ele-60-)

    I have just uploaded a 24bit IFF of a HK-Tank from Terminator
 2.  The rendering and objects are not mine but belong to a
    friend, John Porter, who designs objects when he can get the
    time.  I have also uploaded a couple of his other objects in
    the OBJECTS directory - these include an X-Wing, Y-Wing,
    Scout Walker, and Aliens dropship.  John has kindly made
    these PD (I wish he'd make that HK PD ;) so download,
    criticize (sp?) and I will attempt to answer your questions
    (If there are any :).

    Regards, Kev.


##

Subject: Archive 11 on hubcap
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 91 11:03:06 MST
From: [e-mail] (Marvin Landis)

Archive number 11 is now available on hubcap.clemson.edu (130.127.8.1) in
the pub/amiga/incoming/IMAGINE/TEXT directory.  It covers articles posted
from Aug. 27 - Sep. 14.  As always if you have any problems with the
archives, let me know.

Marvin Landis
[e-mail]

##

Subject: lets use the EXPERIMENTAL directory...
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 91 16:28:50 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Doug Dyer)

Come on! The experiment directory if for pictures that demonstrate an
effect, or is "incomplete, but neat."  So now you have no excuse to
not share your work with us :)


PS - does anyone know of a "dropcloth" type program that will display
a pic. behind workbench in os2.0?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Doug Dyer     *      Clemson University     *     [e-mail]
Quote 'O Fun:         DOS is a bike without the seat.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

##

Subject: Marble?!
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 91 18:12:33 PDT
From: Daryl T. Bartley <[e-mail]>

Argh! Maybe it's just me, but I have tried and tried to get a nice marble, or even a non-nice marble, in Imagine, to no avail. I have run Wood into the ground just about, (of course, I could be wrong)...I have some nice IFFs of Marble, but I can't wrap them! Is there any easy or semi-easy way to get marble, without using truckloads of RAM?

Thanks in advance,

D-Mon
Survivor: AnimeCon '91 staff
Thank you for your hard cooperation


##

Subject: Re: PageFlipper F/X meets Imagine anim
Date:    Wed, 18 Sep 91 22:38 EDT
From: "'Bish' (Doug Bischoff)" <[e-mail]>

     On the subject of importing the 4-bit iffToDCTV conversion files... Imagin
e DOES have an "IMPORT" button... that could be used to import what it would
then consider (in its own terminology) "Already Completed" frames.  Someone
care to try it?

-Bish

##

Subject: 24bit PPM for UNIX...
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 91 21:14:54 PDT
From: Daryl T. Bartley <[e-mail]>

Just a quick question...do any of you know if there is a version of the 24bit
ppm utils that will run under unix?

Thanks in advance.

Daryl Bartley

Are any of my messages getting through?

##

Subject: "Fireship" Sketches posted
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 91 08:45:46 -0700
From: A message from ************************** Looking for Mokkori-Chan's --MH <[e-mail]>

  Ok, for those interested, the sketches for that "fireship" that I can't
quite create is uploaded to hubcap in the pub/amiga/incoming/IMAGINE/PROJECTS
directory.
-------------The fireship.readme file.
These sketches are intended for those who want to try and make and
Imagine object of the defined "fireship".  The sketches are moderately
large and are all IFF format.

The fireship is composed of a detachable cockpit and a shuttle-like
encasement for space travel.

The files are as follows:
fireship.persp.iff- a 3/4 view of the fireship.
fireship.controls.iff- the inside of the cockpit
fireship.side.iff- the side view of the fireship
fireship.top+rear.iff- the top and rear view of the fireship
fireship.bttm+front.iff- the front and bottom view of the fireship
fireship.rear+mvmt.iff- the rear of the fireship and some explanation
                        of how the ship should move
fireship.movement.iff- explanation of movable parts on the ship
fireship.cockpit.iff- display of how cockpit sperates from ship and
                      views of the cockpit
shuttle.parts.iff- view of all parts of the shuttle-like encasement and
                   how it fits around the ship
shuttle.insert+persp.iff- view of the fireship inside the encasement and
                          a perspective view of the ship.
shuttle.head+rear.iff- closeup of head of "shuttle" and rear view of the
                       shuttle.
                       (collapsing tail wings, wing flaps, afterburner)
--------------
All designs were created by Roy Pounds II.  The design is volunteeer
work, but the finished object should be PD for anyone to use, if it
ever gets finished.

Thank for all your help, and please e-mail to:
[e-mail]
if you plan on creating it(and if you finish it!)

A message from **************************"Looking for Mokkori-Chan's"--MH
M O K K O R I   H U N T E R            |)________________________________
aka  David Cotelessa      (((((((((((((||-------------------------------/
Address: [e-mail]   |)r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r,r

##

Subject: Anyone have advice on creating effects with the ripple effect?
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 91 12:08:57 JST
From: [e-mail] (Manjit Bedi)


I have been playing around with the ripple feature for the last few
days. I have been getting very lackluster results.  I have set up a
plane about 500 x 500 with 20 x 20 sections or something like that.  I
have a wood texture map applied to the obeject.  The ripple results
don't show up very well when I create an animation.  The animation is
320 X 200 in 32 colors in the Imagine format.  I don't rememebr the
parameters that I gave to the ripple effect.  But now that I think
about it I might have made a mistake.  Anyway when, I create the
animation in RAM in the stage editor the results seem fairly distinct;
I used a fairly high amplitude.  Could be the lighting I am using is
not well set up for this.  I have 3 light sources fairly well away
from the plane; I have them set to cast shadows.  I would like to hear
how other people have been using the ripple effect.  Ultimately, I
want to have an animation of a some sort of 24 bit image on a plane
with it rippling.

Thanks.

Manjit Bedi ( [e-mail])
                    no sig  -  no worries

##

Subject: IMPORT button
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 91 09:36:38 EDT
From: F. Felixberto <[e-mail]>

    Could someone please explain exactly what the "IMPORT" button in the
project editor is supposed to do?  Thanks.

                        felix


##

Subject: Re: 24bit PPM for UNIX...
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 91 09:13:09 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

Daryl T. Bartley writes:
>Just a quick question...do any of you know if there is a version of the 24bit
>ppm utils that will run under unix?
.....
>Okay, that should work... I was just wondering if the utils for 24bit IFFs
>would be in there, since they are more recent. I'll look. Thanks for the help.

I'm not sure what you are refering to when you say "that should work" but
even the most recent version of pbmplus doesn't include 24bit iffs.
However, I modified ilbmtoppm.c about a year ago to accept 24bit IFF and
it was written to work on both the Amiga and Unix provided you have the
rest of the pbmplus source. I have versions that work with both the old
source and the new. The newer version source is below. Let me know if
you have any problems.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/* ilbmtoppm.c - read an IFF ILBM file and produce a portable pixmap
**
** Copyright (C) 1989 by Jef Poskanzer.
**
** Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
** documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided
** that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that
** copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
** documentation.  This software is provided "as is" without express or
** implied warranty.
**
** Modified 10/90 by Mark Thompson to handle 24 bit IFF.
** Modified 7/91 by Mark Thompson to accomodate latest pbmplus version.
*/

#include "ppm.h"
#include "ilbm.h"

void main( argc, argv )
int argc;
char *argv[];
{
  FILE *ifp;
  pixel *pixelrow, *colormap = 0;
  int argn, colors, i, j, r, g, b, byte, bytes;
  short rows, cols = 0, row, col;
  int maxval;
  char iffid[5];
  unsigned char *body = 0, *bp, *ubp, *rawrow, *runbuf;
  unsigned char *Rrow, *Grow, *Brow;
  long formsize, bytesread, chunksize, viewportmodes = 0;
  int nPlanes, masking, compression, xAsp, yAsp, ham, hammask, allPlanes;
  unsigned char get_byte();

  ppm_init( &argc, argv );

  argn = 1;

  if ( argn < argc )
    {
      ifp = pm_openr( argv[argn] );
      argn++;
    }
  else
    ifp = stdin;

  if ( argn != argc )
    pm_usage( "[ilbmfile]" );

  /* Read in the ILBM file. */
  iffid[4] = '\0';
  getfourchars( ifp, iffid );
  if ( strcmp( iffid, "FORM" ) != 0 )
    pm_error( "input is not a FORM type IFF file", 0,0,0,0,0 );
  if ( pm_readbiglong( ifp, &formsize ) == -1 )
    pm_perror( 0 );
  getfourchars( ifp, iffid );
  if ( strcmp( iffid, "ILBM" ) != 0 )
    pm_error( "input is not an ILBM type FORM IFF file", 0,0,0,0,0 );
  bytesread = 12;

  /* Main loop, parsing the IFF FORM. */
  while ( bytesread < formsize )
    {
      getfourchars( ifp, iffid );
      if ( pm_readbiglong( ifp, &chunksize ) == -1 )
        pm_perror( 0 );
#ifdef DEBUG
      fprintf(stderr, "chunksize = 0x%x\n", chunksize);
#endif
      bytesread += 8;

      if ( body != 0 )
        {
          fprintf(
                  stderr, "%s: \"%s\" chunk found after BODY chunk -- skipping\n",
                  argv[0], iffid );
          for ( i = 0; i < chunksize; i++ )
            (void) get_byte( ifp );
        }
      else if ( strcmp( iffid, "BMHD" ) == 0 )
        {
          short junk;
          if ( pm_readbigshort( ifp, &cols ) == -1 )
            pm_perror( "EOF / read error", 0,0,0,0,0 );
          if ( pm_readbigshort( ifp, &rows ) == -1 )
            pm_perror( "EOF / read error", 0,0,0,0,0 );
#ifdef DEBUG
          fprintf(stderr, "columns = %d, rows = %d\n", cols, rows);
#endif
          if ( pm_readbigshort( ifp, &junk ) == -1 )
            pm_perror( "EOF / read error", 0,0,0,0,0 );
          if ( pm_readbigshort( ifp, &junk ) == -1 )
            pm_perror( "EOF / read error", 0,0,0,0,0 );
          nPlanes = get_byte( ifp );
          masking = get_byte( ifp );
          compression = get_byte( ifp );
#ifdef DEBUG
          fprintf(stderr, "bitplanes = %d, compression = %d\n", nPlanes, compression);
#endif
          (void) get_byte( ifp );    /* pad1 */
          if ( pm_readbigshort( ifp, &junk ) == -1 )    /* transparentColor */
            pm_perror( "EOF / read error", 0,0,0,0,0 );
          xAsp = get_byte( ifp );
          yAsp = get_byte( ifp );
          if ( pm_readbigshort( ifp, &junk ) == -1 )    /* pageWidth */
            pm_perror( "EOF / read error", 0,0,0,0,0 );
          if ( pm_readbigshort( ifp, &junk ) == -1 )    /* pageHeight */
            pm_perror( "EOF / read error", 0,0,0,0,0 );
        }
      else if ( strcmp( iffid, "CMAP" ) == 0 )
        {
          colors = chunksize / 3;
          if ( colors > 0 )
            {
              colormap = ppm_allocrow( colors );
              for ( i = 0; i < colors; i++ )
                {
                  r = get_byte( ifp );
                  g = get_byte( ifp );
                  b = get_byte( ifp );
                  PPM_ASSIGN( colormap[i], r, g, b );
                }
              if ( colors * 3 != chunksize )
                (void) get_byte( ifp );
            }
        }
      else if ( strcmp( iffid, "CAMG" ) == 0 )
        {
          if ( pm_readbiglong( ifp, &viewportmodes ) == -1 )
            pm_perror( "EOF / read error", 0,0,0,0,0 );
        }
      else if ( strcmp( iffid, "BODY" ) == 0 )
        {
          body = (unsigned char *) malloc( chunksize );
          if ( body == 0 )
            pm_error( "out of memory", 0,0,0,0,0 );
          if ( fread( body, 1, chunksize, ifp ) != chunksize )
            pm_error( "EOF / read error reading BODY chunk", 0,0,0,0,0 );
        }
      else if ( strcmp( iffid, "GRAB" ) == 0 ||
               strcmp( iffid, "DEST" ) == 0 ||
               strcmp( iffid, "SPRT" ) == 0 ||
               strcmp( iffid, "CRNG" ) == 0 ||
               strcmp( iffid, "CCRT" ) == 0 ||
               strcmp( iffid, "DPPV" ) == 0 )
        {
          for ( i = 0; i < chunksize; i++ )
            (void) get_byte( ifp );
        }
      else
        {
          fprintf(
                  stderr, "%s: unknown chunk type \"%s\" -- skipping\n",
                  argv[0], iffid );
          for ( i = 0; i < chunksize; i++ )
            (void) get_byte( ifp );
        }

      bytesread += chunksize;
    }

  pm_close( ifp );

  /* Done reading.  Now interpret what we got. */
  if ( cols == 0 )
    pm_error( "no BMHD chunk found", 0,0,0,0,0 );
  if ( body == 0 )
    pm_error( "no BODY chunk found", 0,0,0,0,0 );
  if ( xAsp != yAsp )
    fprintf(
            stderr,
            "(Warning: non-square pixels; to fix do a 'ppmscale -%cscale %g'.)\n",
            xAsp > yAsp ? 'x' : 'y',
            xAsp > yAsp ? (float) xAsp / yAsp : (float) yAsp / xAsp, 0,0,0 );
  if ( (viewportmodes & vmHAM) && (nPlanes != 24) )
    {
      ham = 1;
      hammask = ( 1 << ( nPlanes - 2 ) ) - 1;
      maxval = ( 1 << ( nPlanes - 2 ) ) - 1;
      if ( maxval > PPM_MAXMAXVAL )
        pm_error(
                 "nPlanes is too large - try recompiling with a larger pixval type",
                 0,0,0,0,0 );
      if ( colormap != 0 )
        for ( i = 0; i < colors; i++ )
          {
            r = PPM_GETR( colormap[i] ) >> ( 10 - nPlanes );
            g = PPM_GETG( colormap[i] ) >> ( 10 - nPlanes );
            b = PPM_GETB( colormap[i] ) >> ( 10 - nPlanes );
            PPM_ASSIGN( colormap[i], r, g, b );
          }
    }
  else
    {
      ham = 0;
      if ( colormap != 0 )
        maxval = 255;        /* colormap contains bytes */
      else
        maxval = ( 1 << nPlanes ) - 1;
      if ( nPlanes == 24 ) {
        maxval = 255;
        fprintf( stderr, "You done got yo self a REAL (24bit) image\n");
      }
      else if ( maxval > PPM_MAXMAXVAL ) {
        fprintf( stderr, "1)maxval=%d, nPlanes=%d\n",maxval,nPlanes);
        pm_error( "nPlanes is too large - try recompiling with a larger pixval type" );
        }
    }
  if ( viewportmodes & vmEXTRA_HALFBRITE )
    {
      pixel *tempcolormap;

      tempcolormap = ppm_allocrow( colors * 2 );
      for ( i = 0; i < colors; i++ )
        {
          tempcolormap[i] = colormap[i];
          PPM_ASSIGN(
                     tempcolormap[colors + i], PPM_GETR(colormap[i]) / 2,
                     PPM_GETG(colormap[i]) / 2, PPM_GETB(colormap[i]) / 2 );
        }
      ppm_freerow( colormap );
      colormap = tempcolormap;
      colors *= 2;
    }
  if ( (colormap == 0) && (nPlanes != 24) )
    fprintf(
            stderr, "(No colormap -- interpreting values as grayscale.)\n" );
  allPlanes = nPlanes + ( masking == mskHasMask ? 1 : 0 );

  ppm_writeppminit( stdout, cols, rows, (pixval) maxval, 0 );
  pixelrow = ppm_allocrow( cols );
  if ( nPlanes == 24 ) {
    Rrow = (unsigned char *) malloc( cols );
    if ( Rrow == 0 )
      pm_error( "out of memory", 0,0,0,0,0 );
    Grow = (unsigned char *) malloc( cols );
    if ( Grow == 0 )
      pm_error( "out of memory", 0,0,0,0,0 );
    Brow = (unsigned char *) malloc( cols );
    if ( Brow == 0 )
      pm_error( "out of memory", 0,0,0,0,0 );
  } else {
    rawrow = (unsigned char *) malloc( cols );
    if ( rawrow == 0 )
      pm_error( "out of memory", 0,0,0,0,0 );
  }
  runbuf = (unsigned char *) malloc( RowBytes( cols ) );
  if ( runbuf == 0 )
    pm_error( "out of memory", 0,0,0,0,0 );

  bp = body;
  for ( row = 0; row < rows; row++ )
    {
      /* Extract rawrow from the image. */
      if ( nPlanes == 24 ) {
        for ( col = 0; col < cols; col++ ) {
          Rrow[col] = 0;
          Grow[col] = 0;
          Brow[col] = 0;
        }
      } else {
        for ( col = 0; col < cols; col++ )
          rawrow[col] = 0;
      }
      for ( i = 0; i < allPlanes; i++ )
        {
          switch ( compression )
            {
            case cmpNone:
              ubp = bp;
              bp += RowBytes( cols );
              break;

            case cmpByteRun1:
              ubp = runbuf;
              bytes = RowBytes( cols );
              do
                {
                  byte = *bp++;
                  if ( byte <= 127 )
                    for ( j = byte, bytes -= j + 1; j >= 0; j-- )
                      *ubp++ = *bp++;
                  else if ( byte != 128 )
                    for ( j = 256 - byte, bytes -= j + 1, byte = *bp++;
                         j >= 0; j-- )
                      *ubp++ = byte;
                }
              while ( bytes > 0 );
              if ( bytes < 0 )
                pm_error( "error doing ByteRun decompression", 0,0,0,0,0 );
              ubp = runbuf;
              break;

            default:
              pm_error( "unknown compression type", 0,0,0,0,0 );
            }

          if ( i >= nPlanes )
            continue;    /* ignore mask plane */

          if ( nPlanes == 24 ) {
            for ( col = 0; col < cols; col++ )
              if(i<8) {             /* red */
                if ( ubp[col / 8] & ( 128 >> ( col % 8 ) ) )
                  Rrow[col] |= 1 << i;
              } else if(i>15) {     /* blue */
                if ( ubp[col / 8] & ( 128 >> ( col % 8 ) ) )
                  Brow[col] |= 1 << (i-16);
              } else {              /* green */
                if ( ubp[col / 8] & ( 128 >> ( col % 8 ) ) )
                  Grow[col] |= 1 << (i-8);
              }
          } else {
            for ( col = 0; col < cols; col++ )
              if ( ubp[col / 8] & ( 128 >> ( col % 8 ) ) )
                rawrow[col] |= 1 << i;
          }
        }

      /* Interpret rawrow into pixels. */
      r = g = b = 0;
      for ( col = 0; col < cols; col++ )
        if ( ham )
          { /* HAM mode. */
            switch ( ( rawrow[col] >> nPlanes - 2 ) & 0x3 )
              {
              case 0:
                if ( colormap != 0 && colors >= maxval )
                  pixelrow[col] = colormap[rawrow[col] & hammask];
                else
                  PPM_ASSIGN(
                             pixelrow[col], rawrow[col] & hammask,
                             rawrow[col] & hammask, rawrow[col] & hammask );
                r = PPM_GETR( pixelrow[col] );
                g = PPM_GETG( pixelrow[col] );
                b = PPM_GETB( pixelrow[col] );
                break;

              case 1:
                b = rawrow[col] & hammask;
                PPM_ASSIGN( pixelrow[col], r, g, b );
                break;

              case 2:
                r = rawrow[col] & hammask;
                PPM_ASSIGN( pixelrow[col], r, g, b );
                break;

              case 3:
                g = rawrow[col] & hammask;
                PPM_ASSIGN( pixelrow[col], r, g, b );
                break;

              default:
                pm_error( "impossible HAM code", 0,0,0,0,0 );
              }
          }
          /* 24bit image */
        else if ( nPlanes == 24 )
          PPM_ASSIGN(
                     pixelrow[col], Rrow[col], Grow[col], Brow[col] );
        else if ( colormap != 0 )
          /* Non-HAM colormapped. */
          pixelrow[col] = colormap[rawrow[col]];
        else
          /* Non-HAM direct -- weird. */
          PPM_ASSIGN(
                     pixelrow[col], rawrow[col], rawrow[col], rawrow[col] );

      /* And write out the row. */
      ppm_writeppmrow( stdout, pixelrow, cols, (pixval) maxval, 0 );
    }

  exit( 0 );
}

unsigned char
  get_byte( f )
FILE *f;
{
  int i;

  i = getc( f );
  if ( i == EOF )
    pm_error( "EOF / read error", 0,0,0,0,0 );

  return (unsigned char) i;
}

getfourchars( f, fourchars )
     FILE *f;
     char fourchars[4];
{
  fourchars[0] = get_byte( f );
  fourchars[1] = get_byte( f );
  fourchars[2] = get_byte( f );
  fourchars[3] = get_byte( f );
}

##

Subject: Re: 24bit PPM for UNIX...
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 91 12:05:18 CDT
From: Wayne Haufler 283-4160 <[e-mail]>

Mark Thompson writes:
> However, I modified ilbmtoppm.c about a year ago to accept 24bit IFF and
> it was written to work on both the Amiga and Unix provided you have the
> rest of the pbmplus source. I have versions that work with both the old
> source and the new. The newer version source is below. Let me know if
> you have any problems.

Thank you, Mark.  I have been using pbmplus at work, and I am sure your
enhancement will come in real handy.  However, these Sun Sparc stations seem
to be capable of displaying only 256 colors anyway.  At least I haven't been
able to coax 'Direct Color' out of them in any reasonable time.  I will get
and use pbmplus for the Amiga later.

BTW, I recently modified ppmmap to add an option to do a simpler color
mapping.  Its a long story, but if anyone is interested in the mod let
me know.  I also HAD a need to add a feature to pnmrotate to avoid
resizing the resulting pix/bitmap, but didn't get to it.

Thanks again :)


         __         Wayne A. Haufler   [Christian/SW Engineer/XLib'er/Amigan]
\\ /\\ /\\ //_       [e-mail]          MDSSC - Houston
 \/--\// \//__       Hobby:"Exploring the Use of Computer Graphics and
     //                     Animations To Support Christian Endeavors"

##

Subject: Imagine.DCTV.anims
Date: 23 Sep 91  0:10 -0700
From: Andrew Niemann <[e-mail]>

In response to following message:



From:    <[e-mail]> To:

Subject: PageFlipper F/X meets Imagine anim

Tue Sep 17 12:33:01 1991

.......THE REAL POINT OF THIS MESSAGE BELOW Mayhap there is
some devious way to get Imagine (since we already have it)
to assemble converted DCTV frames. DAAM could create the
frames, but I bet if we copied the IFFtoDCTV frames over the
original Imagine frames, Imagine would choke when it tries
to assemble an anim with 24-bit frames when it finds 4-bit
frames.

So mayhap you could do the rendering in one subproject and
save the converted pics in another subproject set to the
right screen parameters. And you'd have to hand-edit
whatever configuration file Imagine uses to tell what has
been rendered. (I haven't looked at this for Imagine yet,
but the file was a text file in Turbo Silver.) If anyone
tries playing with these ideas, let us know.

Moo. Frank Branham > > ......................



Yes it works. However only with Imagine 1.0, not 1.1.
Imagine 1.1 will do something or other to DCTV's special
pixels, and you get a garbled, striped, grey image. Imagine
1.0 works beautifully though. (although my copy of the
original Imagine 1.0 disk wouldn't install the Imagine1.0
program, so I was kind of stuck since I had sent the
original off to get the update, and then like a fool
directly installed Imagine 1.1 when I got it. I've heard of
others having the same problem of not being able to get
Imagine to install off of a copied disk. -copy protection?)



Anyway all you have to do is generate all the frames and use
Adam or Daam to convert them to some other directory and
delete the Imagine files as it goes along. Then move the
DCTV files back to the directory where Imagine is expecting
them and then 'make movie'. Imagine still thinks it has all
its image files in the directory and merrily makes the anim
as per its movie script. It will make a movie script
automatically if you don't have one already there. Make sure
that the file format is set to Hires images as far as
displaying stills is concerned. Make sure the DCTV images
are numbered similarly to how Imagine does them without the
.dctv on the end.

You'd think Imagine would choke on DCTV images when it was
expecting 24bit images, but it's displayer doesn't seem to
care. I've found the Imagine anim format to be somewhat
faster than the Anim.5 format, but it is certainly a LOT
bigger in file size. The DCTV images grew to about twice
their size if I remember correctly, so your anim may end up
having to be smaller. However I did not get any variation of
frame rate (which in the anim.5 format could vary
drastically), no matter how big the image difference between
frames was, and you can use all of Imagine's movie scripting
abilities. Unfortunately it was still pretty slow, this is
on a slow A3000 (I figured I would get a cheap 040 board
when they came out, but now that they're out they certainly
aren't cheap) and I don't think a 25mhz A3000 would make
enough of a difference to get a decent frame rate. But an
040 board ?

andy




##

Subject: Globe Project
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 00:45:45 -0700
From: Michael Gibson <[e-mail]>

I just spent tonight making an animation of the earth rotating, and I thought
that it might be a good thing to upload to hubcap as a tutorial on spherical
image-wrapping. It is kind of a fun little animation project. I will lharc it
and put it on hubcap... it is meant to be lharced into RAM: . I use RAM: a
lot for my projects because it is fast and I do have extra ram, but no hard
drive yet :(  . I think that it turned out very well. It is set to generate
a quarter screen low-res 60 frame animation. I generated the map using
a public domain program called drawmap. It chucked out a nice two-color
image. Then, I colored the oceans white, and the land-masses black, and
wrapped it on a sphere as a transparency (filter) map. It took me a little
while to remember to shrink the y-axis on those wrap-x wrap-z wraps. I also
set the object to be "bright" because I wanted the map to be a solid color,
and not have to worry about lighting and what-not. I also added a solid
black sphere inside the globe, so that one couldn't see through it and get
messed up that way... i think that making the continents a mirrored surface
would turn out an absolutely fantastic animation, especially if displayed
with DCTV. Anyway, I'll upload it in the next day or two.. pretty simple,
but a nifty project nonetheless, I think. I think I will have to get ued
used to using image-wraps a lot more. This simple image-wrapping project
turned out quite a bit better than most polygon-modelling based projects
that I have tried... Anyway, any questions or comments are appreciated..

                Michael Gibson

                [e-mail]

##

Subject: here's an imagine tidbit..
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 01:03:46 -0700
From: Michael Gibson <[e-mail]>

Here's a little imagine tidbit that I thought I might as well share, since
I realized that there are probably some people that don't know about it,
I don't think that there is any mention of it in the manual....
When playing back an imagine animation from imagine or from playianm,
pressing the function keys will change the playback speed. press F1 to
play at the fastest frame rate, f2 to play at the default rate, and f-etc
to play even slower. I think that f1 is 30fps, and f2 is half that, etc.
you can also freeze or single-step the animation by pressing the space-bar.
holding down the space bar does really fast single-steps, in effect the
same as pressing f1. The thing is, many animations look  way way better
when displayed at the faster rate provided by F1. Hope this helps...

                Michael

                [e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: here's an imagine tidbit..
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 07:37:03 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Edward Chadez)

On Sep 23,  1:03am, Michael Gibson wrote:
} Subject: here's an imagine tidbit..
}
} When playing back an imagine animation from imagine or from playianm,
} pressing the function keys will change the playback speed. press F1 to
} play at the fastest frame rate, f2 to play at the default rate, and f-etc
} to play even slower. I think that f1 is 30fps, and f2 is half that, etc.

Actuall, for those of us with only one or two megs, the 'f2 speed' is quite
nice for lengthy animations that still appear to flow nicely.

}
}                 Michael
}
}                 [e-mail]
}
}-- End of excerpt from Michael Gibson


Edward Chadez
 -Amiga3000-

--
+--//-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|\X/ [e-mail]/Edward Chadez                CARL Systems(303)861-5319|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

##

Subject: 60 Frames A second
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 11:22:57 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Michael Linton)

Does anyone know if Imagine plays back animations in 60 frames per second?
When ever I play any through the program it seems to play then at about 15 fps.
I don't know if it is maybe the fact that my computer is un-accelerated, but I
don't know.  Also does anyone know if there is a way to change the fps when
playing animations with the PlayIanm program?

           Thanks.

[e-mail]


--- (Michael Linton) a user of sys6626, running waffle 1.64
E-mail: [e-mail]
system 6626: 63 point west drive, winnipeg manitoba canada R3T 5G8

##

Subject: How do you change the world and so on....
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 91 09:54:50 JST
From: [e-mail] (Manjit Bedi)

A long long time ago some poeple on the list were having trouble with
the world size in Imagine when doing raytracing.  I did not pay
attention to how you exactly change the world size in the in the
Imagine.config file.  I have this problem now and I tried the entry WSZE
2000 2000 2000.  An educated guess on my part.  Imagine did not barf
but I got 'not enough RAM' errors when I tried to generate an image.
So how do you change the world size and how does it possibly affect
memory? I have 2M chip & 2M fast and I am running OS 2.01

Manjit Bedi ( [e-mail])
                    no sig  -  no worries

##

Subject: Re: How do you change the world and so on....
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 91 09:05:51 +0200
From: [e-mail] (Helge Egelund Rasmussen)

[e-mail] (Manjit Bedi) wroteF

> I did not pay
> attention to how you exactly change the world size in the in the
> Imagine.config file.  I have this problem now and I tried the entry WSZE
> 2000 2000 2000.  An educated guess on my part.  Imagine did not barf
> but I got 'not enough RAM' errors when I tried to generate an image.
> So how do you change the world size and how does it possibly affect
> memory? I have 2M chip & 2M fast and I am running OS 2.01

I don't know how to change the world size in the Imagine.config, the normal
way is to add a size bar to the global actor.
I'm not sure that the world size affects memory usage, but it certainly affects
rendering time. To get the fastest rendering, try to select a world size which
is as small as possible.

Helge
---
Helge E. Rasmussen  .  PHONE + 45 36 72 33 00  .  E-mail:  [e-mail]
Compel A/S          .  FAX   + 45 36 72 43 00  .
Copenhagen, Denmark

##

Subject:      Help with object construction
Date:         Tue, 24 Sep 91 08:12:53 MST
From: Guy Mullins <[e-mail]>

Help!
I am currently working on a project that requires the construction of a
phone.  I am a relative new Imagine user, and I am still not very well
versed in object construction.  I've managed to build the phone base and
handset with a reasonable degree of acuracy using the Detail editor,
however, I am at a loss as to how to construct the spiral cord.
Is this as complex as it appears!  Or is there some nifty Imagine bell or
whistle (maybe a menu item marked 'phone cords') that will make this a bit
more managable.
Help! I've fallen and I can't get up.


----------------------------------------------------------------
|                                  |                           |
|  Guy Mullins, Media Specialist   |                           |
|  University Media Systems        |  voice: [phone]    |
|  Arizona State University - USA  |    fax: [phone]    |
|                                  |                           |
----------------------------------------------------------------

##

Subject: Frames per second
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 91 12:48:19 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Bandy michael carl 792-6000x3351)

An easy question... I think ...

How do you change the number of frames per second when creating a movie
in the project editor?  Furthermore, (maybe related?) the documentation
tells us that the movie editor commands are familiar to Turbo Silver users -
for those of us who started with Imagine, can someone explain what other
commands are available?

BTW - I'd like to say thanks to everybody who participates in this mailing
list.  Without the support here I'd still be fumbling with the basics; this
is an excellent way to get the novice up the learning curve.

Thanks.                   Mike Bandy

##

Subject: world size considered brain dead :-)
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 91 16:13:46 BST
From: jerry cullingford <[e-mail]>

Helge E. Rasmussen writes:

> I don't know how to change the world size in the Imagine.config, the normal
> way is to add a size bar to the global actor.
> I'm not sure that the world size affects memory usage,
> but it certainly affects rendering time. To get the fastest rendering,
> try to select a world size which is as small as possible.

I've been bitten by this as well. Pushing the world size up gave me (I think)
an out-of-memory error. I gave up and scaled everything down by 100 (metres
instead of centimetres :-) ) and it all worked. *sigh*. Same objects, same
(desired) final result, and lots of needless hassle...

Am I the only one who thinks that this part of Imagine is brain dead?
Why doesn't Imagine work out the world size by looking at the objects,
and then scale things internally, if it needs to, to get maximum
performance?

It all reeks of sloppy programming to me :-(

If it's dividing things into voxels, you can make a (pretty feeble) case
for why it falls over for large worlds and works for small ones (*), with
otherwise identical contents, but not working the size out is just plain
lazy. (IMHO, IMHO :-) as always!)

(*) basically, "fixed size voxels are faster", although variable sizes
(especially powers of two, or whatever), or scaling objects down internally
to work with the fixed size shouldn't be much slower. Most of the time I'd
happily trade a slightly increased rendering time for avoiding the need to
rescale everything by hand to get it to work at all.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+     |
| Jerry Cullingford  #include <std.disclaimer>     [phone] |   ,-|--
| [e-mail] (was [e-mail]) or [e-mail]      x3203 |   \_|__
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+ \___/

##

Subject: Locking the Palettes
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 91 10:27:11 PDT
From: Louis D'Ambrosio <[e-mail]>

A user of mine (run a bbs) has a problem:

   He wants to create an animation and then inport it to
Deluxe Paint III.  However, when he loads the image, each
cell has a different palette.
   I thought I read a way of locking the palette in image
but now I cannot find the thing.  Is there a way or does he
have to use some utility to convert all of the cells to one
palette?

Thanks!



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name:    Louis D'ambrosio                   E-Mail: [e-mail]
Work:    Data Management Resources                  uunet!dmrinc!lou
         20725 S. Western Ave #100          Phone#: [phone]
         Torrance, CA 90813                 FAX#:   [phone]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Sysop of:  Amiga Artists Club & BBS - 3-2400b - 24 hrs - [phone]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

##

Subject: Re: Help with object construction
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 91 13:52:41 EDT
From: [e-mail] (John J Humpal)

To make a spiral type of object, like a phone cord, set up a disk primitive,
go to Pick Points, select the center point, delete it (which will also
delete the edges and faces that make the disk "solid"). You will now have a
faceless ring.  The next bit will take some experimentation to get the right
look.  Move the object's axis off to one side or another, that is, move it
outside of the boundary of the disk.  Now, select the Mold menu item (right-
Amiga-E) and extrude the disk WITH rotation of some multiple of 360 degrees
about the z-axis.

I think that'll work.

-John

John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer


##

Subject: Phone Cords
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 91 14:11:10 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Guy Muller asks:

>Help!
>I am currently working on a project that requires the construction of a
>phone.  I am a relative new Imagine user, and I am still not very well
>versed in object construction.  I've managed to build the phone base and
>handset with a reasonable degree of acuracy using the Detail editor,
>however, I am at a loss as to how to construct the spiral cord.
>Is this as complex as it appears!  Or is there some nifty Imagine bell or
>whistle (maybe a menu item marked 'phone cords') that will make this a bit
>more managable.
>Help! I've fallen and I can't get up.

Don't worry, Mr. Muller, help is on the way.

This is a quick and dirty description of what you need to do. If you need
more help, feel free to write again.

Yes, there is a VERY easy way to make phone cords in Imagine, even
ones that curve and loop instead of looking like a straight corkscrew
pipe. The tool you need to use is EXTRUDE. It will follow a path, and
also allow you to make the spiral curves as it goes.

First, make the path you want the phone cord to follow. Add a new
axis, and enter "add lines" mode, then click away, forming the path
you want.  Tie it in pretzel knots if you want. The path will be made
of line segments, so use lots and lots of them to smooth out the
curves. I would use about 100, but you could use 10 or 1000 if you
want. If you want to edit the path, enter "drag points" mode and drag
the path around however you like. Use the attribute requester to name
this object "path".

Now, to make the cord, you need to tell Imagine what it looks like.
(it's basically a tube that corkscrews around a path). Add a new disk
object, with maybe 7 or 8 sections. More sections is fine, but you'll
get a more complex object.  Pick and delete the center point so that
you get just the circular outline. Now imagine your phone cord, and a cross
section at any particular point. The cord corkscrews around the path at
a certain distance (in real life, maybe half a centimeter) and the
cord itself has a radius (of maybe a millimeter). Scale the disk so
that it is roughly the size of the cord itself (the 1 mm radius),
using the length of your path to define the scale.

Now, Pick the axis and use capital-M to MOVE the axis OUTSIDE the disk
to one side, a distance equal to maybe 3 or 4 radii of the disk. This
is the radius of the "corkscrew" the cord will follow.

Now, you're ready to go! Pick the disk, and select "mold, extrude".
Click "along path", and enter "path" as the name of the path. Select
"align to path" (so the cord is always facing the direction it should be
moving). For "y rotation" enter the number of corkscrew spirals you want
multiplied by 360... This might be 9000.. I hope the requester takes that
big of a number. For "number of path sections" enter a number of about 5
or 6 times the number of corkscrew spirals. Now hit "extrude" and if
all went well and I didn't forget anything, you now have a phone cord!

Again, this is a quick description from memory, but it should work just
dandy. There is actually a more difficult way to make a more accurate
spiral by using extrude twice- if you aren't satisfied with the results
of this method, I can describe it to you as well.

Good luck, Mrs. Fletcher.

-Steve

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: about the phone cord
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 91 11:50:51 -0700
From: Michael Gibson <[e-mail]>

This stuff about the phone cord reminds me about a problem that I had with
Imagine and that I was going to write about sometime, so it might as well be
now. The problem occured when I was using Imagine to generate all sorts of
nifty geometric shapes by using the extrude to path stuff. I was using a
disk with the middle point deleted as a path, too. squashing it to an oval,
and wrapping a symmetrical square around it with a 90degree twist gives a
pleasant moebius-type torus... anyway, the problem with creating curly-cues
in the way described is that you don't get them with an even thickness. To
get even thickness, you have to have a curley-cued path and then extrude
a circle along that path with an align to Y. The problem is, it is impossible
to generate a curley-cued path, or any other sort of nifty convoluted path
because IMAGINE DOES NOT EXTRUDE SINGLE POINT OBJECTS!!!! Boy was this a pain
for me a while ago. What I wanted was to extrude a single point to make a
series of edges that could then be used as a base for another, more complicated
path. In fact, I remember a bug with the extrude command when you tried to
extrude something with just edges and no solid outline and then doing undo.
something like that anyway. It was really nervewracking, because it should be
a simple thing to do (extruding a single point instead of a polygon), but it
just did not function!! Has anybody else had any experience with this? If
this simple function worked, I could create all sorts of very intersting
curley-cued and convoluted shapes extremely easily.... Arrrgh!!!

I have been reading this list and using Imagine for quite some time now, and
I think I will start posting to it a lot more often now. I compressed my
nifty little globe-rotate project, and the whole thing (without any frams
rendered, of course) compressed down to a 7K file! Including the bitmap! I
was impressed... It doesn't use any polygons, that's probably why, just two
of the perfect sphere objects. I will upload it to hubcap just after I
type out a readme file for it, probably tonight or tommorrow. It creates a
nifty little spinning earth animation that looks a lot like the BBC logo thing.
Nothing fancy, but pretty nifty, anyways.

I will write about a few things that I have discovered about Imagine and various
stuff in the coming weeks...... here's one idea that I just thought about
and did last night... take a small animation and turn every frame into a
line drawing using AdPro, and reassemble the anim... makes for a different
look. I did this last night for a digitized animation and it was interesting.
by the way, I will write in just a bit about an animation digitizer that I have
had for a while that is nifty for grabbing animation frames quickly. It is
called the Vidi-Amiga frame grabber, and is an import from England. Cheap, too.

well, that's sort of a mighty long letter, so I'll write some more later.
anyway, I'm ready now to contribute to the list here regularly! (and
pretty enthused about it, too)

                    Michael

                    [e-mail]

##

Subject: FAQ LIST
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 91 10:49:37 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Steve Worley)

THE IMAGINE MAILING LIST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION LIST,  V 1.00

                         by Steven Worley
                       Last Updated 9/24/91


---------------

-How do I get out of viewing a picture in the Project Editor?

  There is a bug in Imagine which will freeze the displayed picture on
the screen if you press the mouse button. To get back to the Project
editor after looking at a picture or watching an animation, press the
ESC key.  IF YOU ACCIDENTALLY PRESS THE MOUSE BUTTON FIRST THE ESC KEY
WILL _not_ WORK!  If you do this by mistake anyway, you can pull down
the picture by grabbing the top of the screen, exposing the Project
Editor screen beneath. If you click on the exposed Project screen,
_then_ press ESC, the picture will then disappear.

-Why do objects get chopped in half or not appear when I raytrace?

  Imagine has a "world size" that objects must stay within when they
are being raytraced. This "world" is the volume in the Stage Editor
that extends from X= -1024 to 1024, Y=-1024 to 1024, and Z= -1024 to
1024.  If you have any objects outside of this volume they will NOT
show up when rendered in Trace mode. You can either move and scale
your objects so that they are all within the world volume, or you can
increase the world size manually. This is done by going into the
Action Editor in Stage, and using "Add" to add a SIZE channel to the
GLOBAL actor. For a size, just type in the size you want the world to
be; default is 1024. Note that lights and the camera CAN be outside of
the world volume, only objects must stay inside. Also, the world size
does NOT affect scanline rendering, just trace.


-Why won't the brush mapping axis stay where I position it?

  There is a bug in Imagine .9 and 1.0 that does not keep any changes
you make to the brush size, orientation, and placement when you
interactivlely edit the axis. You will position the brush, but if you
go back to it, you'll find that the brush hasn't moved. The easiest
way to get around this bug is to use LOCAL mode when manipulating the
brush. Press "l" before you move, rotate, or scale the brush axes, and
the changes you make should be remembered.  This bug does not affect
the Transform requester.



-How can I increase the quality of my Imagine HAM pictures?

  If you are using HAM to display your pictures, make sure that you
select "auto-dither" before viewing the picture. Dithering will
dramatically increase the color resolution of most pictures, though
the HAM picture will be slower to display and the file size of the HAM
picture will be larger. For the best HAM display, the Art Department
by ASDG can load 24-bit pictures generated by Imagine and display them
with noticably better dithering than Imagine.

-Where can I get pre-made objects?

 There are a few commercial packages of Imagine format objects. One is
a set of aircraft used in the Gulf conflict, and is sold by Impulse.
You can find it at many dealers, or order it though Impulse. There are
also a great many public domain objects. These objects can be found at
many BBSes as well as at the FTP site hubcap.clemson.edu. There are at
least four megabytes of distributable objects (and other files for
Imagine) available there.

-How do I join the Imagine Mailing list?

 The Imagine mailing list is a group of Imagine users on the
nationwide computer network called the Internet. If you have access to
this network, you can get on the list. The list consists of mailings
from the list members, talking about all aspects of 3D in general and
Imagine in particular. If you are able to send and receive mail, mail
"[e-mail]" and ask to join the list! That is all there
is to it. Even if you do not have Internet mail access, many BBS's
carry the list as well, though you might not be able to post.


-How do I extrude to a path? I get an error, or a straight line.

  First, it is important that you use the right type of path. What
"extrude to path" uses is a series of connected line segments to
define the direction the extruded object follows. Extrude does NOT use
the spline paths that are used in the Stage Editor.

When you've created a line segment path, use the attributes requestor
to see the name of the path- you might even want to call it "PATH" as
opposed to "AXIS.5" or whatever it happens to be called already.  Pick
the object or outline you want to extrude, and get to the extrude
requestor. Toggle the extrude to path button, which will unghost the
path name box. Type in the name of the path that you noted before.
Also, make sure you change the "# of segments" box to a number greater
than one!  Your extrusion will be of better quality the higher you set
this, though your object size and complexity will also increase. If
you try to extrude and get an error message, you are using the wrong
type of path- use a line segment path. If you just get a tube that
doesn't follow your path, set the # of segments to something greater
than one.


-What is the difference between line paths and spline paths?

Imagine uses two different types of paths, lines and splines. Line
paths are just an object that consists of a set of points linked by
edges. The order of the points defines the direction of the path. To
make this type of path, it is easiest to add a new axis in the Detail
Editor, then enter "add lines" mode. Whenever you click, a new point
and edge will be added where you're pointing, and you can trace your
path in just a few seconds.  This type of path is used for extruding
along paths as well as the "Grow" F/X.

The other path type is splines.  These paths CANNOT be used in the
Detail Editor, they are for defining routes for objects to move along
in the Stage Editor. Both open and closed paths are available; open
paths are lines that define a route from a starting point to an ending
point; closed paths always start and end at the same place, which is
useful for cyclic motion or looping animation. You can create a new
spline path by selecting "add path." The paths are interactivly
editable in the Stage Editor.


-Why doesn't an altitude brush make a dent in my object?

The explanation in the manual of the way altitude brushes work is
incorrect. The manual describes a "displacement map", which is somewhat
similar. An altitude map just tells Imagine that light hitting the
object's surface should be reflected, refracted, and specularated (!)
as if it hit a surface that had a certain shape to it- the shape
described by the brushmap's intensity. If you mapped a picture with
lots of small fuzzy grey dots onto a sphere, you would get reflections
and light highlights as if the sphere had tiny pits in it like an
orange. NOTE! The altitude map does NOT change the real surface height
of your object at all. THIS is the difference between a displacement
map and an altitude map. Nonetheless, this is a powerful effect, as
making objects like golf balls and oranges, as well as complex
surfaces like a turbulent ocean and a mottled brick wall are all
easily possible.

-How can I conserve memory? I'm running out.

 First and foremost, try to keep from using lots of big brushmaps.
Many times a smaller version of a picture will produce just as good an
image, and will save a CONSIDERABLE amount of memory. Textures in
Imagine don't use much RAM; you might try to add details with a
texture rather than a custom brushmap.  Another way of saving memory
is never to have the animation builder automatically generate frames;
RAM is wasted by keeping previous frames in memory as the new one is
rendered. First, generate all of your frames, THEN build the anim.
This can easily save 300K of memory over doing it the other way. If
you are scraping for K, you can get about 80K by not running
workbench.  Make a floppy disk that has a modified Startup-Sequence
that does NOT include the command "LoadWB" but instead runs Imagine
("work:Imagine/ImagineFP") if Imagine lives on your work: drive.
However, if you do a lot of rendering, you'll find that you can never
have too much memory; it's always useful and these days it's pretty
cheap.


-Some faces are rendered in black. Why? It works fine sometimes.

   This is a bug in Imagine .9 and 1.0. Large faces close to the
camera are sometimes thought to be facing away from the camera, so
they are rendered in black. This bug is fixed in 1.1. In the meantime,
if you move the object away or make the faces smaller, the bug will
occur less often.


-How can I get the Imagine 1.1 upgrade?
  Mail your ORIGINAL Imagine diskette with a self addressed stamped
return envelope back to Impulse. Make sure you stamp the return
envelope with enough postage to get to you wherever you live.  This
upgrade is available to any owner of Imagine anywhere, including
non-US owners.


-What size should I make my objects? 1000 units? .1 units?

The size of objects is not critical, as they can always be re-scaled
in the Stage Editor to whatever size you wish. However, it is best to try
to keep your objects on the order of a hundred units wide. If you start
making a detailed object that is .1 unit wide, you might start hitting
the limit of Imagine's spacial resolution (how accurately it can place a
point) which is 1/65536 of a unit. Also, if you make the objects too large,
you might run into the absolute size limit (65536 units) and you might
have problems in raytracing if the object is outside of the world
size.

-I can't make transparent glass. Help!

    Objects with any shininess set in the attributes requester will
not be transparent. You must set the shininess of any glass to ZERO,
and the filter values moderately high.  This is actually not a bug,
since the filter controls are really "appropriated" by Shininess to
control the color of the "shine."

-What is the difference between flat-flat, flat-wrap, and wrap-wrap wrapping?

There are three basic types of wrap- a "flat" wrap (Flat X Flat Z), a
"sphere" wrap (Wrap X Wrap Z), and a "cylinder" wrap (Flat X, Wrap Z and
Wrap X, Flat Z). Flat will ignore any surface bumps and features and just
apply itself directly, much like a slide projector would project onto a
bumpy screen. A sphere wrap tries to encase the object in the brush, then
shrinkwrap the map onto all of the surface features of the object. The
cylinder wrap tries to follow contours in one direction, but ignore them in
another. Think of taking a piece of gift wrap, and bending it around so its
a hollow cylinder.  Then place the object in the center of this vertical
gift wrap cylinder and push IN (but not up or down!) to follow the object
contours.


-I can't make objects that look like they're metal. Why not?

Metals are tricky to define, as the most important aspect of them is
their reflectiveness. If there is nothing for the metal object to
reflect, your eye will not interpret the object as being shiny and
therefore not metal. Thus, make sure to put the metal objects in an
environment that allows the ground and sky to be reflected. A global
brush map (in the Global requestor in the Action Editor) allows you to
specify a world for the metals to reflect. If you have a simple
landscape (even a two color picture of mountains and sky made in ten
seconds with a paint program) you'll see that there is a dramatic
increase in the realism of the appearance of metals.


-Why do looping anims stutter when I play them?

  If you have a cyclic path that an object is following, the cycle
starts and ends at the same point. Thus, an object is in the same
place for the first frame and the last frame. If you are making a
looping anim, the object will not move for that one frame, causing the
anim to "stutter." If you were animating a compass needle spinning 360
degrees, a 6 frame animation would NOT show the angles (0, 60, 120,
180, 240, 300) degrees in each successive frame, it would show (0, 72,
144, 206, 278, 0) degrees. When animated, each angle is shown once,
except zero, which is shown TWICE. So, for one frame, the object
appears to suddenly stop moving, causing a VERY noticable stutter in
it's motion.

One way to get around this bug is to define one extra frame that you
do not even have to render- make a 101 frame anim, and just don't
render or use the last frame. This will make a smooth cyclic motion
both for objects moving on paths and for cycle objects.


-What's the best default lighting setup? Ambient light?

Using just one light tends to make very sharp shadows and a very odd
looking picture. More than about four lights starts making everything
 well illuminated, and specular reflections stand out everywhere.  A
good compromise is to have one light very near the camera to guarantee
that everything visible has some light on it, and one or two "accent"
lights about 60 degrees away from the camera at a different height.
Ambient light can help show dark crevices of objects and soften
shadows, but too much really washes out the world. A small value of
about 5 works best.

-How can I speed up my rendering? It's taking WAY too long.

 Beyond the obvious solution of getting a faster machine, there are a
lot of parameters you can tweek. In the Imagine.config file, you can
use Memacs to edit the EDLE parameter (Edge Level) to a higher number.
This number controls antialiasing, how each pixel is sampled many
times to get a good estimate of it's true value. A low number like 0
is very high quality, but is very slow. 35 is the default. A value of
100 can speed up renders by 50%, but the quality of your pictures will
go down.

D If you are always running out of memory, you'll find that adding
more RAM will also speed up rendering. This is because in tight RAM
situations your machine will start using slow Chip RAM instead of the
faster Fast RAM.  On a 2 Meg A3000, this effect is dramatic, since it
has 512 K of Fast and one meg of Chip, Adding just one extra meg of
RAM will easily DOUBLE rendering speed of a 2 Meg A3000.

In trace mode, rendering speed is linked to your object size- very
very small objects take longer to render if the world is much larger.
You want to scale your objects to fit into your world, but take up a
good fraction of the world size. If the world size is 2048 wide,
rendering a 1 unit high object can take TEN TIMES longer than a 500
unit high version, despite the fact that it's the same view of the
same object.


-How can I get the best quality for my final render?

 First, crank antialiasing down to it's best level, 0. This will slow
down rendering. ALWAYS render in 24 bit mode; the 12 bit mode will
save file size, but at the expense of poorer color resolution. You
might even consider rendering at a larger size than you want your
final output, then use a utility like The Art Department to shrink the
large picture down. Shrinking the rendered picture will then make each
pixel a more accurate representation of the colors in the image at
that location- this is a way of increasing antialiasing PAST Imagine's
built in limit.  Your 24 bit output will be of the best output
quality; now the only question is output. An RGB 24 bit board like the
Firecracker is probably optimum.  NTSC 24 bit display from the Video
Toaster is also good, but can't compare to a sharp RGB display. Next
best are display hardware like DCTV and HAM-E, which aren't 24 bit
quality, but are still better than HAM. Finally, if you want to
display directly on your Amiga without extra add-ons, you'll have to
use HAM or a Hires picture. HAM is usually best, since it can display
a wide variety of colors, but if you have a detailed picture without
many colors, sometimes a high resolution 16 color display can be
better. Even if you have to use HAM, stunning pictures are still
possible.


-How can I make mirror images of objects?

  To flip an object so that it is mirror imaged, pick it in the Detail
Editor, then use the Transform command and SCALE it by X= -1.00 Y=1.00
Z=1.00.  You'll get a mirror image object. This is very useful when
you are making an object like an airplane where you can just copy one
object (like a wing) and mirror image it for the other side.


-Where can I get more detailed tutorials on Imagine?

There are a set of text file tutorials on Imagine on the Hubcap FTP site,
in the directory /pub/amiga/incoming/IMAGINE/TUTORIALS.


-How can I convert Imagine objects to and from other formats, like
 Sculpt-Animate 4D or Lightwave?

 There is a  commercial program called Interchange which will
allow you to convert Imagine format objects from other formats. The
quality of the conversion is only mediocre, since surface coloring, textures,
brushmaps, and other unique object characteristics are lost.

 If you have another format and are proficient in programming, there
is an excellent shareware utility called TTDDD (Textual Three
Dimensional Data Description) written by Glenn Lewis. If you can
program (in C, AREXX, even BASIC) you can use this utility to make
your own conversions. TTDDD is incredibly useful for programmers who
want to play with scripted or algorithmic object creation as well as
translation. TTDDD can be found on may BBSes and FTP sites, though if
you use it, you should send Glenn a few dollars; it's well worth it.


-What's the basic strategy in building an object from scratch?

Mike Halvorson wrote once that the way to build a model was to work on
each piece at a time. Don't build an F16 straight, build each part
individually. A fuselage can come out of the Form editor, a wing can
be extruded (and the other wing made from a mirror image copy), a jet
exhaust can be spun. It is also much easier to give each of these
sub-parts their own attributes and brushmaps, as opposed to working
with a single object with many points that have to be hidden with
"hide points". Another advantage is you can whip together a crude
model, then selectively replace the parts with higher quality
subsections later.




----------------------------------------------------------------------
This FAQ list may be redistributed any where you wish in any form as long
as it is complete and unedited.

##

Subject: Re: Help with object construction
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 91 15:23:21 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Alan Price)

 Guy Mullins writes:

>I am at a loss as to how to construct the spiral cord.
>Is this as complex as it appears!  Or is there some nifty Imagine bell or
>whistle (maybe a menu item marked 'phone cords') that will make this a bit
>more managable.

There is yet another way to easily make spirals, coils, or other twisted
objects: Use 'Extrude along path' in the 'Mold' requestor. To easily
create a spiral path do the following:

1) add an axis in the detail editor.
2) use 'create lines' to make a single, two-point, line-segment that lays
   along the x axis. Make this line segment the radius of the coil you want
   to create. Make sure one of the two points is centered on the axis.
3) Extrude this line segment along Y with the mold requestor. Set it to rotate
   on Z as many times as you want the coil to curl around (1440 = 4 rotations)
   You might want to give it a very high 'sections' value to create smooth
   curves. (This is going to be your PATH and not the final object so go for
   it!)
3) Experiment with step 3 and UNDO until you get a satisfactory coil shape.
4) You now have a kind-of "double-helix" affair with one part of the helix
   being a straight line up the center of the object with lines connecting
   vertices to the outer cork-screw (like a spiral-staircase).
   Use "select points" with "drag box", and in the front view, multi-select
   all the points running straight down the middle.
5) Delete those points.
6) You now have a cool spiral path! Save it for future uses!
   Name it "PATH" in it's attributes requestor.
7) Now create a NEW object ('Add axis', 'Add lines') to create a "sillouhette"
   or cross-section of the shape to extrude along this path. (A phone cord's
   cross section might look kinda like a kidney-bean shape)
8) Now, with that new shape selected, select MOLD - EXTRUDE ALONG PATH, and
   the name of the path is already PATH, and have the object ALIGN TO Y.
   (You may have to do a little axis-orientation tweaking to get this process
    just right.)
9) Viola!

If any of the above needs clarification, just ask.

PS. A fun project with the above:
    Extrude an open circle along the spiral path. Save that as Spring.1
    Scale the spiral-path so that the coil is shorter in height. Extrude the
    open circle along the new spiral-path. Save that as Spring.2.
    In the stage editor, morph back and forth between Spring.1 and .2 for
    a bouncing spring effect!

AP.



##

Subject: Re: about the phone cord
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 91 15:36:49 CDT
From: Wayne Haufler 283-4160 <[e-mail]>

Michael Gibson writes:
> ... The problem is, it is impossible
> to generate a curley-cued path, or any other sort of nifty convoluted path
> because IMAGINE DOES NOT EXTRUDE SINGLE POINT OBJECTS!!!! ...

I rented the video tape "Imagine the Possibilities" (or something like that)
awhile ago, and I seem to remember a segment on just that, generating
spiral paths.  I think they created a simple object consisting only of
two points connected with an edge, then extruded it with many sections
while twisting it (somehow getting it to rotate as it extruded, I can't
quite remember how).  They then multi-selected all of the points that
were extruded from one of the original points and deleted them, leaving
what?  A spiral or curly-cued path!!  In fact, I think this was the basis
for one of Louis Markoya's creations.

Can anybody else out there vouch that I remembered this correctly, or
can explain this process further?


         __         Wayne A. Haufler   [Christian/SW Engineer/XLib'er/Amigan]
\\ /\\ /\\ //_       [e-mail]          MDSSC - Houston
 \/--\// \//__       Hobby:"Exploring the Use of Computer Graphics and
     //                     Animations To Support Christian Endeavors"

##

Subject: A new way to create Imagine objects
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 91 09:21:52 +0200
From: [e-mail] (Helge Egelund Rasmussen)

There's been a lot of questions lately about how to create different kinds
of objects with imagine.

Well, you'll soon have a new way to create objects: IGENSURF, which I'll
upload to some ftp site probably this weekend (any comments on where I
should place it? Hubcap? Which directory?).

Here is a short description:

igensurf is a program to generate a TTDDD description of a  functional
surface.   The  TTDDD  description  can  then  be converted to Imagine
object files with the WriteTDDD utility written by Glenn Lewis.

It is possible to create a very wide class of objects  with  igensurf,
in  fact, I can't offhand think of an object which couldn't be created
with it (although it often would be much easier to create  the  object
with the Imagine editors).

The language  used  to  define  the  surface  contains  arithmetic  if
statements  and  'switch'  statements  as  well  as a lot of different
mathematical functions. Just to make things more interesting, you also
have access to different noise functions, so that it  is  possible  to
create landscapes etc.

It is also possible to define surface colors, reflectance and transmittance
for the single faces.

Furthermore igensurf can be used to create  objects  based  on  bezier
patches. In fact one of the examples that I'll upload is how to create
the Utah teapot from bezier patches.

Other examples show how to create spirals, super_ellipsoids, a simple
landscape etc.

The major caveat is that you'll need some knowledge of mathematics to use
this program.

Here is an example of an input file for igensurf:

===========================
{
    super_el.cal: Create a superelipsoid

    igensurf -v -s 15 -t 15 -S 100 -f super_el.cal
        -e "x_exp=0.1;y_exp=0.1" | writetddd >super_el.obj

    x_scale, y_scale and z_scale is the scale factors for the x, y and
    z axis, they're set to 1.0 below, but can of course be modified.

    x_exp and y_exp controls the roundedness of the surface.
    if they equals 1, you get a sphere. If they're less than 1, the surface
    becomes more box like. If they're greater than 2, the surface becomes
    concave. Set them from the command line with the -e option.


    Try these values:
    x_exp = 0.1, y_exp = 0.1  (a die)
    x_exp = 1.0, y_exp = 1.0  (a sphere)
    x_exp = 0.1, y_exp = 1.0  (a barrel)
    x_exp = 0.1, y_exp = 2.9  (I don't know what this one is called!)
    x_exp = 2.9, y_exp = 2.9  (ditto)
    x_exp = 2.9, y_exp = 1.0  A top
}

{ x_exp : 2.9; }    { Set these with the -e option instead.      }
{ y_exp : 2.9; }

x_scale    : 1.0;        { Scale factor for the x axis }
y_scale    : 1.0;        { Scale factor for the y axis }
z_scale    : 1.0;        { Scale factor for the z axis }

x(u,v) = x_scale * gy(u) * hx(v);    { This is a spherical product }
y(u,v) = y_scale * gx(u);
z(u,v) = z_scale * gy(u) * hy(v);

gx(u) = Pow(cos(PI*u), x_exp);
gy(u) = Pow(sin(PI*u), x_exp);

hx(v) = Pow(cos(2*PI*v), y_exp);
hy(v) = Pow(sin(2*PI*v), y_exp);

    { Be sure that pow can handle negative numbers: }
Pow(x,y) = if (x, x ^ y, -((-x) ^ y) );

===========================
I'll let you know when I've uploaded it.
---
Helge E. Rasmussen  .  PHONE + 45 36 72 33 00  .  E-mail:  [e-mail]
Compel A/S          .  FAX   + 45 36 72 43 00  .
Copenhagen, Denmark

##

Subject: WOOD TEXTURE!!!
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 91 11:45:30 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Michael Linton)

Has anyone ever created a really spectacular wood grain?  I can't seem to get
one that looks realistic.  I have tryed many different settings but all of
the grain seems to be too straight.  If anyone could give me the texture
settings for wood or marble I'd really appreciate it.

          Thanks.



--- (Michael Linton) a user of sys6626, running waffle 1.64
E-mail: [e-mail]
system 6626: 63 point west drive, winnipeg manitoba canada R3T 5G8

##

Subject: spacest.zoo on hubcap
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 91 10:41:55 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Edward Chadez)

I have uploaded a picture which is a rendering based on the proposed NASA
space station (set for sometime in the next decade).  It's cheesy, I'll
admit, but I will take comments on improving it, and once complete, I'll
upload the complete object.

Edward Chadez
 -Amiga3000-

--
+--//-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|\X/ [e-mail]/Edward Chadez                CARL Systems(303)861-5319|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

##

Subject: Re: WOOD TEXTURE!!!
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 91 14:58:36 PDT
From: Louis D'Ambrosio <[e-mail]>

> Has anyone ever created a really spectacular wood grain?  I can't seem to get
> one that looks realistic.  I have tryed many different settings but all of
> the grain seems to be too straight.  If anyone could give me the texture
> settings for wood or marble I'd really appreciate it.

If your really in need I have about 6 different wood 24bit
images that seem to work very well.   As I do not have FTP
or uucp file access the only way to recieve them from me
would be to call my bbs or we could go US mail.   Try
contacting the bbs below.  It is an Art dedicated bbs and
you might find other interesting information.


 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Name:    Louis D'ambrosio                   E-Mail: [e-mail]
 Work:    Data Management Resources                  uunet!dmrinc!lou
          20725 S. Western Ave #100          Phone#: [phone]
          Torrance, CA 90813                 FAX#:   [phone]
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Sysop of:  Amiga Artists Club & BBS - 3-2400b - 24 hrs - [phone]
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

##

Subject: 360 degree rotation.
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 91 18:55:18 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Michael Linton)

I am trying to get some letters to spin around useing the stage editor.  I
managed to get it to work a couple of weeks ago, but I can't seem to get it
to work now.  All I did was change a couple of points and re-extrude them.
Now I can't really remember what I did to get it to work the first time, apart
from either the alignment bar, or the position bar function in the object
menu.  Can anyone tell me what it is that I might have done to get it to
work again?  Also when I do what I think I did the first time, the letters will
rotate, but as the animation frames increase the slowly slide off it's axis,
to the left.  Any input would be really appreciated.


--- (Michael Linton) a user of sys6626, running waffle 1.64
E-mail: [e-mail]
system 6626: 63 point west drive, winnipeg manitoba canada R3T 5G8

##

Subject: faces
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 91 8:07:18 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Dan Drake)

Has anyone tried to model a face or head?  Talking with some people at a
video production house, they create a sphere, then push and pull points
until they get what they want.  I guess that you need a lot of vertical
sections to make this wirk, because my attempts have come to nothing.  What
brought this to my attention is the Chrome face on the hardback cover of
Mona Lisa Overdrive.  Has anyone attempted that?

just curious.

dan.

##

Subject: Re: WOOD TEXTURE!!!
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 91 8:40:19 EDT
From: [e-mail] (John J Humpal)

Michael Linton writes:
> Has anyone ever created a really spectacular wood grain?  I can't seem to get
> one that looks realistic.  I have tryed many different settings but all of
> the grain seems to be too straight.  If anyone could give me the texture
> settings for wood or marble I'd really appreciate it.
>
    The wood texture is not the greatest for wood or marble, although
it is good for some general swirling texture effects.  Anyways, I think the
best way to work with wood texture is to set the Variation parameter really
high (i.e, >3) and move the texture axis way off the object.  You can also
try rotating the axis in various directions.

-John

John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer



##

Subject: Re: faces
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 91 08:05:30 -0500
From: [e-mail]

>Has anyone tried to model a face or head?  Talking with some people at a
>video production house, they create a sphere, then push and pull points
>until they get what they want.  I guess that you need a lot of vertical
>sections to make this wirk, because my attempts have come to nothing.  What
>brought this to my attention is the Chrome face on the hardback cover of
>Mona Lisa Overdrive.  Has anyone attempted that?

>dan.

    I've played around a bit with making a face (head).
Basically, I've been doing what you're talking about here-- starting
with an ovoid or something, and moving points with magnetism; I had a
lot of vertical sections to the front, and left the back very simple.
I haven't gotten great results, and basically this leaves animation
out (I'm assuming you'd want to use a Mr. Potato Head (tm) approach
for that, so you can morph individual parts).

    I haven't seen the Chrome face you're talking about, but I
thought that with some more work the way I was working would work out
okay.

    Originally, I'd been thinking of trying to make a "music
video"-- Bob Dylan singing "Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat"-- a nice project
for the next 5 or 6 years :-).

tedr

##

Subject: Re:faces
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 91 10:35:58 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Alan Price)

>Has anyone tried to model a face or head?  Talking with some people at a
>video production house, they create a sphere, then push and pull points
>until they get what they want.  I guess that you need a lot of vertical
>sections to make this wirk, because my attempts have come to nothing.  What
>brought this to my attention is the Chrome face on the hardback cover of
>Mona Lisa Overdrive.  Has anyone attempted that?

>dan.


Another way to go about making a face: Use 'skin' after making a lot of
cross sections.

I've done this with successful results in two ways:

Making the cross-sections lie along the x axis and creating the lines from
the top view (Top of head, then high forehead, then then mid-forehead, bridge
of nose, and so on.)

Another way would be to create the profile of the face in the front or right
view, then the profile as it would look cut-away an inch or so to the right,
then an inch or so further, and so on. Skinning this creates just the right
side of the face. Copy that and paste it and scale it -1 on X and you have
the left side perfectly symmetrical! Join and merge those if happy.
(You might pull a few points around a little bit because human faces are not
perfectly symmetrical.)

To be real exacting about this, one could use modeling clay to sculpt a head,
then carefully slice it into cross-sections like a loaf of bread, trace each
cross section onto paper, and use that as a guideline in entering the cross-
sections in the detail-editor.

AP.



##

Subject: Re: faces
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 91 12:13:04 EDT
From: [e-mail]

[e-mail] (Dan Drake) asks if anyone has made a head.

Yes, I have. I used the Forms editor to make the basic shape, them made the
extra bits as seperate objects, in Forms and Detail. The nose was a real
pain, but the ears were surprisingly easy. However,  it turns out that
my model was pretty crude because I was just judging sizes and proportions
by eye, and as a whole the head turned out pretty sad.

The REAL way to do it, of course, is to use a Cyberware scanner to
digitize your REAL head... Mark Thompson and I had lots of fun at SIGGRAPH
with this machine.

-Steve

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: Re: faces
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 91 13:31:49 EDT
From: [e-mail] (John Rosner)

[e-mail] writes:

>The REAL way to do it, of course, is to use a Cyberware scanner to
>digitize your REAL head... Mark Thompson and I had lots of fun at
>SIGGRAPH with this machine.

I was impressed by the Head that was on abcd.  Was this from any one we
know?  It looks like it was done on some kind of scanner.

Later,

John Rosner

##

Subject: Re:faces
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 91 14:37:32 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Brian Reynolds)

    Another way to do a head (or other object) using skin would be
to submerge the subject in a tub.  As the subject is raised out of the
water (at regular intervals) trace the outline the water makes around
the subject.  These outlines can then be digitized (by hand if
necessary) and used for the sections in skin.  A girl at NYU did this
with her boyfriend for a course I took in 3D object building.  It
turned out pretty good.

Brian Reynolds "... a drone from sector 7G."
Fusion Systems Group
[e-mail] -or- ...!uupsi!fsg!reynolds


##

Subject: Re:faces
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 91 12:26:24 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Edward Chadez)

On Sep 26,  2:37pm, Brian Reynolds wrote:
} Subject: Re:faces
}
}
}     Another way to do a head (or other object) using skin would be
} to submerge the subject in a tub.

This is also a good way to solve most family conflicts.

} A girl at NYU did this
} with her boyfriend for a course I took in 3D object building.  It
} turned out pretty good.

As well, it can help straighten out those nasty relationships people
sometimes get themselves into.

}
} Brian Reynolds "... a drone from sector 7G."
} Fusion Systems Group
} [e-mail] -or- ...!uupsi!fsg!reynolds
}
}-- End of excerpt from Brian Reynolds


Edward Chadez
 -Amiga3000-

--
+--//-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|\X/ [e-mail]/Edward Chadez                CARL Systems(303)861-5319|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

##

Subject: Re:faces
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 91 16:10:33 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Kevin Quinlan)

Brian writes:

>        Another way to do a head (or other object) using skin would be
>to submerge the subject in a tub.  As the subject is raised out of the
>water (at regular intervals) trace the outline the water makes around
>the subject.  These outlines can then be digitized (by hand if
>necessary) and used for the sections in skin.  A girl at NYU did this
>with her boyfriend for a course I took in 3D object building.  It
>turned out pretty good.


Boy, talk about making HEADLINES...   ;^)

Kevin Q.
-------------------
Kevin Quinlan
Research Engineer
Environmental Research Institute of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
INTERNET: [e-mail]


##

Subject: Re: faces
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 91 16:00:13 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

Steve Worley writes:
> The REAL way to do it, of course, is to use a Cyberware scanner to
> digitize your REAL head... Mark Thompson and I had lots of fun at SIGGRAPH
> with this machine.

Sure did, and I have this wonderful cartridge tape with both the color 3D
model of my head as well as software for displaying it and converting it
to other object formats. The problem is I have had the tape from Cyberware
over a month now and have been unsucessful locating an SGI machine that
I could use in my area to unarchive the data and convert it. So I am putting
out a plea to anyone who has access to an SGI box (the more powerful the
better, but it shouldn't matter) that would be willing to do this task
for me. Any willing participants?
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: 24 bit pics as brushes
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 91 20:19:33 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Michael Linton)

Can I render 24 bit pictures as brush wraps, with out rendering in 24 bit.
And if I can, will it require more ram than just a regular ham pic?

                Thanks.


--- (Michael Linton) a user of sys6626, running waffle 1.64
E-mail: [e-mail]
system 6626: 63 point west drive, winnipeg manitoba canada R3T 5G8

##

Subject: Rendering transparent objects
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 91 15:19:27 JST
From: [e-mail] (Manjit Bedi)

I have sucessfully rendered clear glass objects thanks to this list.
But now I want to render say a clear crystal ball with colored lettering
or some kind of texture on its surface.  I think that should be clear.
Has anyone done this?  What would be the best way to do such a thing.
I plan to experiment with this a bit tonight but I do not quite know
what I am doing.

Manjit Bedi ( [e-mail])
                    no sig  -  no worries

##

Subject: Re: Rendering transparent objects
Date:    Fri, 27 Sep 91 09:43 EDT
From: "Marc Rifkin" <[e-mail]>

Here is a neat little trick that can be used in many ways...
For example, to put colored lettering on a glass sphere...

Create a duplicate sphere with 255 255 255 filter and create two brush maps:
1) The text itself on any background
2) A 2-color version of the text where the text is black and the
   background is white.
Apply both brushes to the same coordinates and angle, except make brush (1)
a color map and brush (2) a filter map.  The white in the filter map will
make the text background disappear.

This filter thing lets you do all sorts of stuff like putting holes in objects
without having to actually do slices, and if you use any gray scales,they
should give different levels of transparency for things like distant clouds
that an airplane could fly up into...  just Imagine!

Hasta la etc!
Marc Rifkin, [e-mail]
Computer Graphics and Integrative Technology, Penn State Univ.
Dedicated to the pursuit of happiness and good renderings.

##

Subject: Re: Rendering transparent objects
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 91 06:50:38 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Edward Chadez)

On Sep 27,  9:43am, "Marc Rifkin" wrote:
} Subject: Re: Rendering transparent objects
}
} Create a duplicate sphere with 255 255 255 filter and create two brush maps:
} 1) The text itself on any background
} 2) A 2-color version of the text where the text is black and the
}    background is white.

This is very interesting!  What Marc has outlined here is exactly the same
process (or, rather the ultimate process) of the 'blue-screen' technique
used in motion pictures.  Way to go, Marc!

}
}-- End of excerpt from "Marc Rifkin"


Edward Chadez
 -Amiga3000-

--
+--//-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|\X/ [e-mail]/Edward Chadez                CARL Systems(303)861-5319|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

##

Subject: Rendering letters on a transparent object
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 91 13:49:01 EDT
From: [e-mail]

[e-mail] (Manjit Bedi) asks:

>I have sucessfully rendered clear glass objects thanks to this list.
>But now I want to render say a clear crystal ball with colored lettering
>or some kind of texture on its surface.  I think that should be clear.
>Has anyone done this?  What would be the best way to do such a thing.
>I plan to experiment with this a bit tonight but I do not quite know
>what I am doing.

Sure, doing this is pretty easy. You just want to use a two color
transparency map in a paint program. Make the background all white.. this
is the transparent area.. all colors (white) are transparent. Then
write your text or doodle or letters in black. This will NOT be transparent,
so it will appear as an opaque area on the object's surface. Just wrap
this brush on the object, and boom, you're on your way. Note that the
object's color will determine the color of the opaque area.

You can also use a grey color for the letters to make them somewhat
translucent. Lots of fun!

Textures will do the same thing. Remember you want to change the
transparency to make things visible. Wood grain on glass has a very
interesting appeal to it!

-Steve

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: Re: 24 bit pics as brushes
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 91 13:56:30 EDT
From: [e-mail] (John J Humpal)

Michael Linton writes:
>
> Can I render 24 bit pictures as brush wraps, with out rendering in 24 bit.
> And if I can, will it require more ram than just a regular ham pic?
>
    24-bit brushes certainly will use up more ram than the same brush
in HAM.  I don't know how a 24-bit brush looks in a HAM rendering, though
because I always render in 24 bits and use Art Dept. to dither down to HAM.

-John

John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer


##

Subject: ANOTHER BATTLETECH!
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 91 16:49:15 -0600
From: [e-mail] (Steven Lee Webb)

    Oops, that's BattleMech.  Pardon my non gaming know-how.

    Well, it's done, and posted on Hubcap.  Another BattleMech to put in yo      collection.  As I have said in the .txt file, Jessie (the creator of the
    object) and I did a 50 frame animation of this guy spinning with
    very dramatic lighting, and it looked MENNACING!

    The archive is WebbObjects4.lha, and that's the only object in it.

    Both BattleMechs are completely movable, and even cycle-able!  Maybee
    this will inspire some new animation concepts out there!  Mattle-Mech
    fights on your Amiga, woah.  Let's see the Next do That for under a
    couple thousand!

    We even changed the wire-frame defaults in Imagine (via the config
    file) and made a wire-frame animation of the object spinning, but the
    wire-frame was green, and it looked like those technical graphics that
    you always see on movies!  just add a little text garbage on the screen,
    and you have some pretty impressive special effects for a movie!


    Just another thing to keep your machines off IDLE for a while.

    -- Steven Webb.


##

Subject: Questions...
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 91 18:44:05 -0400
From: [e-mail] (J. Norell Guttman)

Hi,
    I have been a subsciber to this mailing list for about half
a year I guess (can't even remember) and it has really been helpful
(I wish I had more time to play around).  So thank you Mr. Steve Worley
!!!!!
    Well time for the questions... I can not afford a single frame
recorder but I remember hearing a rumor that IMPULSE would for a slight
fee send a box that would encode the frames onto a VCR tape and you could
send it to them and for another slight fee they would render it for you
onto video tape!
    Next question, my Comp.E. prof. thinking of buying a toaster
was telling me that Todd Rundergren (the dude who is a MacIdiot and
did that video for VH-1 of "Change Myself") started his own company
and made a board for the MAC that essentially outdoes the video toaster
at a comparable price.  NEWTEK was so determined to crack the MAC
market that now they have competition and nobody will like AmigAs
anymore ....  sorry about cause anymore.... sorry about causing any flames but I think this ties into
the thread about IMPULSE porting over Imagine to '386s.  This would
be beyond the ultimate evil in computing since then IBM (I am a Bad
M*therF**ker) users will claim that have ray tracing for themselves
too!!!!!


                Long Live AmigA!!!!!

                J.Norell Guttman
                [e-mail]

--
==============|[e-mail]|J.Norell Guttman|ClassCWRU'94|=================
Ugh....{RunDMC)   "It can only be expressed in silence"- Norell Guttman     //
{LLCoolJ}     My .sig file has been crushed by a 1600 lbs. Case chic!!! \\ //
{Ghetto Boys} It will soon be fixed!{Salt'N'Pepper,HeavyD}    Only Amiga \X/

##

Subject: Re: Questions...
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 91 22:46:06 PDT
From: [e-mail]

>     Next question, my Comp.E. prof. thinking of buying a toaster
> was telling me that Todd Rundergren (the dude who is a MacIdiot and
> did that video for VH-1 of "Change Myself") started his own company
> and made a board for the MAC that essentially outdoes the video toaster
> at a comparable price.  NEWTEK was so determined to crack the MAC
> market that now they have competition and nobody will like AmigAs
> anymore ....  sorry about cause anymore.... sorry about causing any flames but

Don't believe rumors. Yes, Todd is a MacHead. But he is far from working
against the Toaster. Todd and Newtek have started a company together to
do productions called Eutopia. They were trying to sell the idea to
producers at Siggraph. Newtek just gave Todd 60 more Toasters as well.
However, He and Newtek are trying to push the Toaster as a Mac and/or
IBM add on. They basically control the Toaster with the Mac or IBM
through the serial ports and don't tell anyone that it's an Amiga,
just a great video peripheral. Todd himself doesn't use the "Amiga"
per se, he controls it from his Mac as well. This could be where
the rumor came from.

=======================================================================
Sean Schur                        USENET: [e-mail]
Assistant Director SGI/Amiga/Media Lab        Compuserve: 70731,1102
Character Animation Department
California Institute of the Arts
=======================================================================

##

Subject: Todd's MacToaster
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 91 10:19:29 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Alan Price)

I don't know that this is a subject worth pursuing, but I guess I can
understand the Mac-runs-the-Amiga-runs-the-Toaster system for video
effects and such (HOW, I understand, not WHY.) but how does Mr. Rundergren
use Lightwave3D to produce his animations in "Change Myself". Surely
he must move the Amiga's mouse around at least a little bit?

Also, does anyone know where I can get a hold of that video on tape?
I tried watching VH-1, but only made it through about 20 minutes before
running out of the room...

P.S. 60 more Toasters? That makes like 110, now? Perhaps Steve W. can
sweet-talk NewTek into giving each member on this list one each. We deserve
it, no? Besides, WE'D BE USING IT ON ITS' NATIVE CPU!!!!!!!!

AP.


##

Subject: Amiga
Date:    Tue, 1 Oct 91 11:20 EDT
From: "Marc Rifkin" <[e-mail]>

Hello,

I am trying to convince the Mac/IBM brainwashed people at Penn State
to take a serious look at the Amiga for graphics and multimedia and
was wondering if you knew about any applications of the Amiga at MIT.
I'd appreciate any information or even examples (I'd pay for any expenses
like shipping) that I could use in my presentations.

Thanks,
-Marc Rifkin
5F Mitchell Building
University Park, PA 16802
814-863-8062
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Amiga!!
Date:    Tue, 1 Oct 91 11:25 EDT
From: "Marc Rifkin" <[e-mail]>

I started sending notes individual people, then I thought "this is going
to take too long." So I am sending this out to everyone on the list.

If you work or are a student at a university and you do work with the
Amiga, please type up a description of what you do and send it to me.
I am trying to convince  the Mac/IBM brainwashed people here that
the Amiga does do some things better (if not all) and should not
be overlooked.  I'd like anything that will convince these people
(within reason, of course).  If you have any examples of your work
that you can send, I'd be glad to pay for shipping, etc.

Thanks very much!!

Marc Rifkin
Independent Learning/Integrative Technology
5F Mitchell Building
University Park, PA 16802
814-863-8062
[e-mail]

PS: Sorry Steve and Sean who already got this message!


##

Subject: Re: Todd's MacToaster
Date: Tue, 01 Oct 91 11:39:22 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

Alan Price writes:
> effects and such (HOW, I understand, not WHY.) but how does Mr. Rundergren
> use Lightwave3D to produce his animations in "Change Myself". Surely
> he must move the Amiga's mouse around at least a little bit?

Yes, there currently is no way of running LightWave without using the Amiga
interface. The Mac interface is strictly for seqeuncing effects. The reason
for this is all the special videotape editing packages available for the Mac
that would merge nicely with a capable switcher/DVE (the Toaster).

> Also, does anyone know where I can get a hold of that video on tape?
> I tried watching VH-1, but only made it through about 20 minutes before
> running out of the room.

Contact NewTek. They now have a complete demo tape that includes the Rundgren
video. The demo is quite good.

> P.S. 60 more Toasters? That makes like 110, now? Perhaps Steve W. can
> sweet-talk NewTek into giving each member on this list one each. We deserve
> it, no? Besides, WE'D BE USING IT ON ITS' NATIVE CPU!!!!!!!!

I find this ludicrous. The only good reason for having that many Toasters
is to train a class or heat a room. The words 'brute force' come to mind.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Re: Rendering transparent objects
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 91 12:53:19 GMT-0500
From: Scott Matthew Krehbiel <[e-mail]>

Well, you might try using the transparency map option to wrap a logo
around a ball.  If you used, for instance, a red logo on a white
background, you should get a red transparent section on an otherwise
clear ball.  At least I think that's the way it should work.
  Scott Krehbiel

##

Subject: Toasters for all
Date: Tue, 01 Oct 91 12:35:07 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Allen Price writes:

>P.S. 60 more Toasters? That makes like 110, now? Perhaps Steve W. can
>sweet-talk NewTek into giving each member on this list one each. We deserve
>it, no? Besides, WE'D BE USING IT ON ITS' NATIVE CPU!!!!!!!!

Ha... I wouldn't mind sweet-talking NewTek for just one for myself!

-Steve

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: Disappearing lights?
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 91 14:22:09 PDT
From: Daryl T. Bartley <[e-mail]>

Sorry if this was covered before, I can't remember, but anyway...sometimes,
almost all the time lately, light sources aren't showing up in my renders. They aren't outside of the world, and it's not anything too memory-heavy...so, is it just me, or what? Is it some kind of copy protection? I did just make a new working disk...I'm out of ideas as to what the heck it is.


Thanks in advance.

Daryl Bartley
[e-mail]
where's that blasted .sig THIS time? argh.


##

Subject: Rooms Project??
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 91 18:04:04 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Alan Price)

It is the end of September.

Some of you may recall my proposal for the 'Rooms Project'. I had
suggested a deadline for all submissions to be the end of September.

Unfortunately, no one ever submitted anything. Only one person inquired
about the progression of it over the last month.

Frankly, I don't understand why anyone would turn down the oppurtunity
to have one of their animation projects rendered in full 24-bit to video
for them for practically nothing!

Perhaps the idea for everyone to create their own room that we would
connect together with all the others for a camera fly-thru posed too
many technical problems of scale-matching, so that my long-winded outline
on standardization of the project became intimidating..., or maybe it was
just a CASE OF MASS APATHY!!!!

(Actually, all the neat objects being uploaded to hubcap proves everyone's
 staying quite busy.)

Anyway, maybe there might be another approach. I would still like to
participate in the creation of a project produced by the members of the
list, but I must remain in doubt until signs show otherwise.

Sincerely, AP.





##

Subject: Re: Rooms Project??
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 91 18:31:21 EDT
From: Udo K Schuermann <[e-mail]>

Alan Price writes:
> Some of you may recall my proposal for the 'Rooms Project'. I had
> suggested a deadline for all submissions to be the end of September.

Ooops!  Time sure flies when you're having fun.  I've been busy with
several things, not the least of which is my new DCTV.  I petition that
the day is lengthened to 48 hours and that we need no sleep. :-) Maybe
that would help me get done all the things I keep myself busy with
<sigh>.

Seriously, though, I have my portion of the project nearly ready (let me
say it's about 80% done).  Give me another three weeks and it's ready
for rendering.  Promise!

Anyone else out there who has been keeping busy with the Rooms project?

 ._.  Udo Schuermann       "Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter
 ( )  [e-mail]    with the promise of the brave new world unfurled
 Seeking virtual memory     beneath the clear blue sky?" -- Pink Floyd

##

Subject: Re: Rooms Project?? How about a gallery
Date: Tue,  1 Oct 91 15:56:21 PDT
From: [e-mail]

Here's an idea.. and you can even have it for free :)

How about ONE person make a bunch of rooms. Call it an art gallery.
Then do an animation wandering thru it and in each room there'd
be a couple pedastals and on each pedestal there'd be one of
the objects that the people on this list have made or contributed.
There could even be a little plaque (brass?) with the object-maker's
name on the front of each pedestal.

If that sound too boring, "larger" objects could be sitting on the
floor and aeronatical ones could be hanging from the ceiling :)

Harv

##

Subject: I see the light!
Date: Tue, 01 Oct 91 19:00:55 EDT
From: [e-mail]

Daryl Bartley asks "Uh, Where's my lights????"

I'm not sure what you mean by "My lights aren't showing up." Do you mean
that you get an all-black render?

If you mean "I add a light, and objects get lit, but I can't see the
source!" then things are the way they should be. Lights do NOT show up
in pictures, they only illuminate OTHER objects in the scene. So if you
are expecting to see a glowing ball hanging in the air, you won't. If
you DO want to make a "visible" light, you can easily create one.
You can build a light bulb (or a white sphere, or a tractor trailer made
of glass, for that matter) and set it to be a light (in the attributes
requester in the Detail Editor). Then you will get the effect you might
be looking for.

If you are getting all black renders, I don't know what the problem is.
Perhaps you have only one light source that is behind another object,
or on the wrong side of an infinite ground. Does the Project Editor
give you a "No lights in Scene" warning?

-Steve

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Worley                                        [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------



##

Subject: Re: Rooms/Harv's version
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 91 17:53:38 -0600
From: HURTT CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL <[e-mail]>

    I like Harv's idea. I'd be willing to submit stuff for that. Be a real
showcase for Imagine. Also, one idea we've discussed locally to make a group
animation is to have one common object with a definite location & position in
the frame for each person. Then each individual has whatever they want happen
to the object for there alloted frames. If done correctly a seemless anim.
should be possible. I suppose a few other things like sky, light, would need
to be standard for the joining frames.

    Chris
    [e-mail]

##

Subject: Amiga
Date:    Tue, 1 Oct 91 21:14 EDT
From: "Marc Rifkin" <[e-mail]>

Related to the MacToaster rumors...
I heard that Todd Rundgren's software company wrote the Mac user interface
for the switcher that Newtek is using.

Related to my Amiga story...
I called an Amiga developer who called an Amiga dealer who called me back
then called Commodore who told him that they would help us demo Amigas
to PSU.

Re-Related to the Toaster story...
Hey it almost makes sense for us Amiga Toaster users to add the Mac
as a peripheral to use its editing s/w.

Marc Rifkin
Integrative Technologies Lab, Penn State University
5F Mitchell Building, University Park, PA 16802
814-863-8062
or for you normal people, [e-mail]
"Hasta, la etc."

##

Subject: Re: I see the light!
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 91 22:10:57 PDT
From: Daryl T. Bartley <[e-mail]>

Okay, perhaps I was a little dim in my description. I don't get a black scene,
or a warning. Hmm. How to explain. Okay. One scene I had an object and two lightsources. One I think was a spherical light, and the other was a spotlight, focused at the object. I render the scene, and only the light being cast from the spherical light shows up! No spotlight. I can't figger it out. Yeah, I was kind of curiours about light sources being actually visible in scenes.

Anyway, thanks for the help. I'll do a few more test and see if it's "just me".

Oh, and count me in for the rooms project...I'm still working on it. Been through about 5 rooms so far, can't get it right. Mind you it won't be anything spectacular, having been designed on a 1 meg system (this may change as I might be able to at least use a friend's 6 meg 3000), but as long as there's no minimum, I'll try!


Daryl Bartley
Survivor: AnimeCon '91 Staff
'Thank you for your hard cooperation'



##

Subject: Single frame recorders..
Date:  2 Oct 91  0:01 -0500
From: "Jeff A. Bell" <[e-mail]>

Aack!  When oh when is someone going to come out with a single frame
recorder that the masses have access to?  The electronic giants must
realize that there IS a large market of people who could put one to
great use, no?

Mark Thompson:  what happened to that single frame capable deck that JVC
was supposed to put out that was to sell for ~$2000 or so?  You posted
some info on it in Rec.video, I believe, and someone as ASDG mentioned
that they were working on a driver for it, and since then, I've heard
nothing further.  Have I missed something?  I think I also remember the
ASDG person (Might have been Pete for that matter) mention that the JVC
deck didn't single frame right out of the box:  you need some sort of
plug in module to get that capability.  Heard anything about this?

Has there been ANY talk of more affordable SFR's?  Surely, with all the
Toasters out there (of which some of the electronic firms seem to pay
attention to), someone must be working on something.  Perhaps politics
are playing a part in delaying development along these lines?  (As in, it
might kill sales of higher end decks such as the 3/4" stuff).

An interesting note (perhaps :):  I've had some success in recording
DCTV animations at about 10fps to an SVHS deck, then using the 2x mode
to dump them to another deck.  The 2x mode is fairly clean (no tracking
problems, although the noise is a bit higher than normal), so it produces
some fairly smooth animations.  Doesn't look all THAT bad, depending on
the animation you're dumping to tape..

Ciao,

Jeff
--
[e-mail]


##

Subject: Re: Questions...
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 91 21:34:20 CST
From: telepro![e-mail] (James Hastings-Trew)

In a message dated Tue  1 Oct 91 04:41, [e-mail] wrote:

 ISI> do productions called Eutopia. They were trying to sell the idea to
 ISI> producers at Siggraph. Newtek just gave Todd 60 more Toasters as
 ISI> well.
 ISI> However, He and Newtek are trying to push the Toaster as a Mac
 ISI> and/or
 ISI> IBM add on. They basically control the Toaster with the Mac or IBM
 ISI> through the serial ports and don't tell anyone that it's an Amiga,
 ISI> just a great video peripheral. Todd himself doesn't use the "Amiga"
 ISI> per se, he controls it from his Mac as well. This could be where
 ISI> the rumor came from.

Erm. Not to throw any more un-informed myth out as fact, but Todd Rundgren
has had a software company called "Utopia Grokware" and had a band called
"Utopia". Reasonable assumption would be that a joint veture between himself
and NewTek would not be called "Eutopia.."

Todd does in fact use the Amiga - there is a photograph of him doing just
that in an issue of AmigaWorld. Also, Todd used Imagine's modeller to create
some of the object in his "Change Myself" video - you can't do that by
controlling the Toaster with a Mac.

I believe I have read that Todd controlled the Video Toaster via ARexx
scripts, not through some serial port weinie thing. What would be the point?
He is a capable programmer (as well as a very good composer/musician/human
being), not to be scared off by something as "imposing" as WorkBench and
AmigaDOS 1.3...


-- Via DLG Pro v0.975b

--- James Hastings-Trew    telepro![e-mail] ---
->  If everyone in China jumped at the same time <-  subliminalmessagewith
->      would they bring back TWIN PEAKS?        <-  subtlebutdeviousplan.

##

Subject: Re: I see the light!
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 91 08:05:13 EDT
From: [e-mail] (John Rosner)

Daryl T. Bartley writes:

>was a spherical light, and the other was a spotlight, focused at the
>object. I render the scene, and only the light being cast from the
>spherical light shows up! No spotlight. I can't figger it out. Yeah, I
>was kind of curiours about light sources being actually visible in
>scenes.

Sounds like Washout.  If you have diminish with distance on the
spotlight it maybe too far away.  If you don't have cast shadows on
there will be less in the way of visible queues that the light exists.

This brings up a light question for me (actually heavy for me).  Is
using diminish with distance purly trial and error?  Or is there a
formula that relates the size of the light to its range?

Later,

John Rosner

##

Subject: Re: I see the light!
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 91 8:40:36 EDT
From: [e-mail] (John J Humpal)

> or a warning. Hmm. How to explain. Okay. One scene I had an object and
> two lightsources. One I think was a spherical light, and the other was a
> spotlight, focused at the object. I render the scene, and only the light
> being cast from the spherical light sh> ows up!
>
    I may be wrong about this, but don't the axis sizes matter with
spotlights (cylinder/conical)?  I think the x-axis controls the diameter of
the spot and y-axis controls the distance the spot reaches when the light
fills the x-diameter.  Or something like that.

-John

John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer



##

Subject: Re: Single frame recorders..
Date: Wed, 02 Oct 91 09:32:43 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

Jeff A. Bell writes:
> Mark Thompson:  what happened to that single frame capable deck that JVC
> was supposed to put out that was to sell for ~$2000 or so?

Two items on that subject. First of all, in order to make the JVC capable
of computer control with any accuracy, a pluggin board(s) is necessary that
was not available back when ASDG worked with it. It may be available now
but I am not sure. However, even if it is, I was more recently informed by
a JVC rep that the deck was hyped a little bit over zealously and while it
could be used as a computer controlled editing deck, it was not up to the
rigors of single frame animation. I find this extremely disappointing.
At some point in time I plan to go out and see one at the local distributor
and see what they think but I am not to hopeful.

The good news is that the Nucleus (software based) single frame controller
has brought the price of controlling a deck WAY down, from about $3000
to only $500 (about $400 street price). Combined with a Panasonic AG-7750
S-VHS editor and an AG-F700 SMPTE generator/reader, a complete solution can
be put together for under $6K. This setup works extremely well with the
Toaster and is a breeze to use.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: RE:Single frame recorders..
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1991 13:11 MDT
From: [e-mail]

Mark,

Do you know if the Nucleus works with any Hi-8 decks?  I am very interested
in the system, but I would rather go with Hi-8 to be compatible with the rest
of my stuff.  If it doesn't, what is a good Hi-8 VTR and controller?

Thanks,

John Z.
[e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: Single frame recorders..
Date: Wed, 02 Oct 91 18:08:22 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

John Zollinger writes:
> Mark,
> Do you know if the Nucleus works with any Hi-8 decks?  I am very interested
> in the system, but I would rather go with Hi-8 to be compatible with the rest
> of my stuff.  If it doesn't, what is a good Hi-8 VTR and controller?

Unfortunately, the Nucleus SFC currently only supports S-VHS, 3/4", M-2,
D-2, and Betacam SP. I had called Nucleus not long ago to confirm this but
I couldn't say what their plans are for future Hi-8 support. Another
possibility that is not quite as inexpensive is the Diaquest DQ-Taco.
But the Amiga World review on it mentions support for every single tape
format except Hi-8. This is probably because traditionally, there hasn't
been much in the realm of capable Hi-8 editing equipment. It has been used
primarily as a capture medium for event videographers and some other
format like S-VHS or Betacam SP is used for editing. As for Hi-8 VTRs,
I avoid them primarily for the reasons I have mentioned, so I really couldn't
reccommend anything. Maybe some other video type on the list might know.
It may however be worth your while to consider another format in addition
to your existing Hi-8 equipment.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Re: Rooms Project??
Date: Wed, 02 Oct 91 14:29:05 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Colin Stobbe)

[e-mail] (Alan Price) writes:

> Perhaps the idea for everyone to create their own room that we would
> connect together with all the others for a camera fly-thru posed too
> many technical problems of scale-matching, so that my long-winded outline
> on standardization of the project became intimidating..., or maybe it was
>
Hello,
     This was my problem.  It was once suggested that someone create a
floorplan for the house, and then people could just fill in the space,
instead of having try and figure out how their individual room would fit
into the whole house.  If someone is willing to make a floorplan, I would
start working on filling a room myself, but until that time, I'll continue
working on my other projects.

          Colin Stobbe
          [e-mail]


--- (Colin Stobbe) a user of sys6626, running waffle 1.64
E-mail: [e-mail]
system 6626: 63 point west drive, winnipeg manitoba canada R3T 5G8

##

Subject: InterChange module for LightWave <-> Imagine
Date: Thu, 03 Oct 91 14:14:22 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

I recently received the next rev of beta InterChange modules. Syndesis
is looking for beta-tester input on the mapping to and from each of the
modules. Here is my wack at a reasonable mapping between LightWave and
Imagine. Anybody have any comments? Also, I will be re-uploading the objects
I had on hubcap using the newest converter.

  LW -> IM
name       does IM support suface names?
color      {cR,cG,cB} = {R,G,B}
reflect    {rR,rG,rB} = %reflect * 255
transmit   {tR,tG,tB} = %transmit * 255
diffuse    diffuse = %diffuse * 255
gloss      hardness = [0, 127, or 255] for glossiness [low, medium, high]
spec       {sR,sG,sB} = (ColorHighlight) ? ({R,G,B}) : (%spec * 255)
refract    LW refractive index (default to 1.00 for pre LW2.0 releases)
luminous   luminous (don't have Imagine 1.1 yet so I don't know the flag name)
wireframe  ???? = outline only
smooth     phong = smoothing

  IM -> LW
name       The current hex # naming is a bit confusing. Decimal chews up more
           space but is easier to read.
color      {R,G,B} = {cR,cG,cB}
reflect    %reflect = (rR + rG + rB) / (3 * 255)
transmit   %transmit = (tR + tG + tB) / (3 * 255)
diffuse    %diffuse = diffuse / 255
gloss      glossiness = low for hard<85, high for hard>170, else medium
spec       %spec = (sR + sG + sB) / (3 * 255)
refract    IM refractive index (I assume pre LW2.0 releases will ignore this)
luminous   luminous (don't have Imagine 1.1 yet so I don't know the flag name)
wireframe  outline only = ????
smooth     smoothing = phong

Note: I am not quite sure how diffuse is defined in Imagine.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Genlock objects
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 91 0:31:38 EDT
From: cbmtor![e-mail] (Caleb J. Howard (Tech Support))

Hello, I have a question.  I am trying to render an object on a black
background.  The object is a word made up of crystal letters (with nice
bevelled edges - Thank you Steve).  The final output is going to be overlayed
onto video using external video mixing hardware.  For this I need a black
(zero-black to you videophiles)background.  I am using a large backdrop
object which is set as a genlock object so that it will refract through the
letters, but the background (where the backdrop is viewed directly) will be
black.  When I render to HAM, it works, when I render to my 24 bit firecracker,
the genlock attribute is ignored and my backdrop is visable everywhere.  The
weird part is that the same picture that is displayed incorrectly on the
firecracker looks correct when I click on the display button and it converts
the image for viewing on a standard Amiga screen.  That is, I display the
picture "pic.0001" on the firecracker and the backdrop is visable around the
letters, but if I just click on the "SHOW" button after having rendered it in
24 bits, the program alters the picture to eliminate the backdrop where it
should be eliminated.  Is Imagine so clever that it realizes that the
firecracker can't genlock?  what's the deal?

Also, does anyone know if colour zero is "zero-black" or not?  also, when
using a genlock object, will Imagine use the zero colour to render anything
that just happens to be black, or is it clever enough to realize that we
don't want little 'holes' in our objects instead of shadows.  It's late,
am I coherent?
-caleb



##

Subject: Re: Genlock objects
Date: Fri, 04 Oct 91 14:42:29 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

Caleb J. Howard writes:
> The object is a word made up of crystal letters. The final output is going
> to be overlayed onto video using external video mixing hardware.  For this
> I need a black background.  I am using a large backdrop
> object which is set as a genlock object so that it will refract through the
> letters, but the background (where the backdrop is viewed directly) will be
> black.

Maybe I don't understand you, but it sounds like you are attempting to
composite a translucent object over genlocked video. First off, without
an alpha channel, this cannot be done. Second, refracting a black background
though a crystal object is a pointless operation. If both these points
are obvious to you, then maybe you could better explain what you are trying
to accomplish.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

##

Subject: Hello?
Date: Fri, 04 Oct 91 13:45:48 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Colin Stobbe)

Hello,
     I hate to post this type of message, but is anyone out there?  I haven't
recieved any mail from the list recently (very strange).
     In other matters, I've been thinking about the room project.  Basically
the thing was to get a number of the list members to do something together,
and then render it in 24 bits to videotape.  If we have access to a single
frame recorder and 24 bit output device, why don't we just submit projects
that we've been working on.  We would wind up with a tape showing not only
the quality of each person's work, but also what everyone's interested in.
It also might be more interesting to non-animators out there, than just
movement through a house.  Who knows, maybe we could get Impulse interested
(the Imagine demo reel).  Well, enough spouting from me.  I can't provide
a 24 bit output device, much less a single frame recording VTR, so I can't
do it.

          Colin Stobbe
          [e-mail]


--- (Colin Stobbe) a user of sys6626, running waffle 1.64
E-mail: [e-mail]
system 6626: 63 point west drive, winnipeg manitoba canada R3T 5G8

##

Subject: Cheaper Single Frame
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 91 11:38:55 EST
From: [e-mail] (Martin Gardiner)

The cheapest way I have found to get single frame recording, is by using
a unit called the Panasonic Time-Lapse VCR (for surveillance systems), I
can't find the name of it right know.  Now there are two versions,
 - one with RS-232 port (for computer control, I don't know it this allows
   the single frame control from the RS-232)
 - one without RS-232
The way you control the single frame, is to connect two external connections
at the back of the unit,  I have use a relay (normally used to control film
single frame recording) tripped by a sound (Beep) out of the Amiga.

The unit is S-VHS, can record single field, frame, 2 frames, 4 etc., the only
problems are
 - you have to record about 2 secs before the images become rock solid
 - you can't change the record rate (as far as I know, you may be able to
   via the RS-232) once you start.  If you shoot single frame, you must
   continue to record single frame unit you finish that pass.
 - you must record a frame within three mins.
 - S-VHS is not BetaCAM SP

good things are
 - CHEAP
 - RS-232
 - S-VHS
 - can be used like a VAS, pixelation is fun to play with

The PAL RS-232 version has not arrived yet, but I believe they are available
is the US already.

Martin Gardiner (Animator/Programmer)



##

Subject: A new guy
Date: Fri, 04 Oct 91 23:23:53 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Keith Suderman)

     Well it looks like I have figured out how to use this board to send
my mail, at least I am receiving the Imagine Mailing List.  I have never
received so many messages as when I just logged on.  Now for some
questions and other things.
     I don't remember who, but someone said they were having problems
with messages bouncing, but the sender of the message was the only one
that should receive the bounce.  I received that message twice???
     I am completely new to 3-D rendering and find Imagine more than a
handful.  From the sounds of it most of you have some background with
Turbo Silver and other programs, so you have a definite advantage.  Can
anyone recommend some good books to read that could help me out.  I
recently downloaded the Imagine Compendium from a loacal BBS (thanks
Colin) and will be pouring over that as soon as I print it out.
     I also read that people are uploading Imagine objects.  How does one
go about downloading these.  Can I have them sent to my local board or do
I have to call long distance?
     This mailing list is great, I can tell already it is going to be a
big help.  Thank you Steve Worley!  But it is a sad commentary on Impulse
and the included documentation that such a mailing list is needed so
badly!
                                           Keith Suderman

--- (Keith Suderman) a user of sys6626, running waffle 1.64
E-mail: [e-mail]
system 6626: 63 point west drive, winnipeg manitoba canada R3T 5G8

##

Subject: Psudeo T2 effects
Date: Sat, 05 Oct 91 17:25:06 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Michael Linton)

Here is a really good way to make scenes that contain chrome more realistic.
If you were planing on making a scene, or animation that takes place in a room,
or outside, digitize some landscapes, or a room.  Make your scene and in the
action menu in the stage editor go to the global settings.  Where it says
to enter name of brush, put in the name of the picture that you digitized.
This will allow the scene to reflect the brush, but it will not be visible in
the final rendering.  This produces an effect like the liquid metal
terminator from Terminator 2.  It is also a really good way to increase the
detail of images, without actually having to draw a whole bunch of objects to
be reflected.  Try it with any brush and it will produce excellent results.


--- (Michael Linton) a user of sys6626, running waffle 1.64
E-mail: [e-mail]
system 6626: 63 point west drive, winnipeg manitoba canada R3T 5G8

##

Subject: Solid Cube?
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 91 11:52:21 -0600
From: HURTT CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL <[e-mail]>

    How does one actaully make a cube that is solid? I had thought by
just extruding a plane I would get a "solid" cube, but in fact it is hollow.
Which points need to be connected inside the cube to make it solid? Or is it
even possible this way? I've tried extruding along a path, where the path is
a point at the center of the cube & scaling it to 0, but that didn't make it
actually solid either.
    I'll try this next, might actaully work. Spin a plane that has one edge
touching the lathe axis. This should make a solid cylinder right? Then I'll
slice out with a box, my solid cube. I hope that works....

    Chris
    [e-mail]

##

Subject: Re: Solid Cube?
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 91 12:46:57 PDT
From: [e-mail] (John T. Grieggs)

>
>     How does one actaully make a cube that is solid? I had thought by
> just extruding a plane I would get a "solid" cube, but in fact it is hollow.
> Which points need to be connected inside the cube to make it solid? Or is it
> even possible this way? I've tried extruding along a path, where the path is
> a point at the center of the cube & scaling it to 0, but that didn't make it
> actually solid either.

What do you mean by solid?  All imagine objects are composed of polygons, and
there is no such thing as a "thick" polygon.  All imagine polygons are 2D
triangles...  If you just want a cube that you can not see through, then you
need to create a cube with faces on all sides and set the attributes of all
the faces to something opaque.  Here are a couple of ways to do that.

1.  Add a primitive plane, 1x1, in the detail editor.  Select and pick it,
then copy and paste it.  Translate the copy negative on Z.  Pick and select
both copies, and join them (thus creating a single object with a big gap).
Enter Add Faces mode, and add faces on all sides.  Enter Pick Objects mode,
and pick and select the object.  Set the color to something opaque.

2.  Add a simple form in the forms editor.  Don't accept the defaults - you
want as few points as possible!  Turn on Symmetry and Snap to Grid.  Drag the
points to form a cube.  Save the object, load it into the Detail Editor, pick
and select it, and set the color to something opaque.

These are simple methods.  There are a wide variety of mutant methods you
could use as well, involving skin or extrusion.  It wouldn't hurt to go
through and do the examples in the tutorial, either - I realize the docs
aren't much, but stuff like this IS in there...

>     I'll try this next, might actaully work. Spin a plane that has one edge
> touching the lathe axis. This should make a solid cylinder right? Then I'll
> slice out with a box, my solid cube. I hope that works....
>
Maybe I don't really understand the question?

>     Chris
>     [e-mail]
>
_john